My poem: The gift of the apple thief
2025-10-26 16:16Fandom: Original
Length: 300
Rating: Gen
For: 2025 Spook Me prompt: https://public.fotki.com/trillingstar/spook-me/spook-me-2025/raven-11.html
Notes: I attempted to copy the cadence of Robert Frost's "Ghost House."
Summary: A would-be apple thief answers riddles and sets a captive scene free.
how sweeter the apples which are robbed!
towards cider boughs, a baseball is lobbed.
it strikes the pane of the next-door church.
it makes the heart of the would-be thief lurch,
thinking of what the ball broke when it bobbed
the Boy knows truant balls must be claimed
or as vandal he’s as good as named
so though the House of God is closed,
he finds a way in, unashamed, unopposed,
under the General’s war camp, framed
how silent is the General’s gaze!
the Boy, ignoring glass splinters a-glaze,
fixes eyes on tracks left by the ball
which down, down to the root-cellar crawl,
down, down, go boyish patter and graze
big black bird greets uninvited guest
with a look and a wink and a test:
‘young man, why do you go to bed each night?’
‘because the bed won’t come to me, all right?’
the raven smiles and puffs out its chest.
then, a skull with a strange hole in its head
asks aloud, reading as it’s read:
‘why don’t snakes know how much they weigh?’
‘’cause they all lose their scales one day!’
in toothless grin, gaunt no-lips spread.
the raven returns, held in its beak,
a dangling key, commences to speak:
‘a young man casts a calendar high. why?’
‘he wanted to see the days fly by!’
the bird squawks. The key drops. The bones squeak.
into the skull’s hole goes the key
revolving with fine finality
the ball rolls home. the Boy turns to go
above, cracks bring the General low
the war camp falls, setting something free
inside the glass, ‘twas the belief,
had lived another scene, in relief,
of Sunday school, not of war, of books,
and from that day, each boy and girl looks
with pride at the gift of the apple thief.

