poetry: Mockorange & Innocent Apple

"Mockorange; Lewis's Syringa; Indian Arrowhead (Philadelphus lewisi). Idaho's state flower; when in full bloom the flowers scent the air with a delightfully sweet fragrance reminiscent of orange blossoms. The genus is named for the Egyptian King Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the species name (and one of its common names) honors the scientist-explorer Meriwether Lewis, who first discovered and collected it during his exploration of the Louisiana Purchase. Indians used its straight stems in making arrows. Flowering: May - July." The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers: Western Region, 531-532.

Honeyed pleasure each spring awaited me,
Proof the Madison River flowed aright
When blossoms on my little Mockorange tree
Announced the caddis hatch, to my delight.

But alas, I read the Audubon Guide
Which humble ignorance at once betrayed.
Oh, how my innocent conceit was tried
By a ghastly truth which upon me preyed.

Neither the arrows piercing straight and true
Nor Lewis with a pistol to his breast,
Nor can his mutilated corpse undo
The knot of a King's incestuous geste.

Ah, Philadelphus, how cruelly you came,
To give my darling blossom such a name.

The innocent apple

As an apple tree among the trees of the woods,
so is my lover among men. I delight to rest in
his shadow and his fruit is sweet in my mouth.
—Canticle of Canticles 2.3.

Augustine thought sex a boring affair
Until concupiscence clouded the mind.
They ate of the tree, our Biblical pair
To the command of their Lord they were blind.

How could fair apple of this be the cause?
The serpent just offered fruit in his plea.
The apple followed the Architect's laws:
Sweet taste of love to be plucked from its tree.

In Canticles, apples quicken desire.
Their ruddy hemispheres, their luscious skin;
The erotic promise to which lovers aspire
Unleashed by fair Cupid's arrows of sin.

If the apple thus sealed Eve's carnal fame
Nature has but its Creator to blame.

Poems

Mockorange: a fly fisher's sad sonnet

The innocent apple