My Home in Islington - I – The Apple Tree

I have an apple tree in the garden right in front of my window. Occasionally a housemate would bring me an apple through my window, but I refuse to eat them. I have come to fear anything that is organic, free of preservatives and that does not have an expiry date on it. The day a tree produces an apple with an expiry date on or a chicken lays eggs with barcodes on them will be the day that I eat them without going to a shop first.It is irrational to think this way. I realize that and hopefully I will change my opinion.

But it does not mean that I do not respect the tree. The tree is a very busybody to use an analogy from our human world. It produces apples at an astonishing rate during the summer. I frequently hear the apples raining down with thuds on the lawn. I can do nothing but respect this incredibly fertile tree, oblivious to the world. It is a well of life.

It is winter. Only a few leaves remain on the now barren tree. Dry sticky fingers point in all directions, trying to grasp the cold air of London. Even in the shades of the evening it appears restless (in a kind of slow motion). Like me, I imagine, it yearns for the fruitful summers ....

Tree At My Window (Robert Frost)

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.
But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.
That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.