by Gerald Friedman
A Tree Grows in Cupertino: Poem for Apple Park
Hidden from public view within Apple’s interior courtyard are over 800 fruit trees…
—Edible Silicon Valley
A charming prince turned dying king
scraped the concrete fields free
of parking lots and hot pot shops
to build his last castle here, seeding
his legacy with nine thousand trees.
Oaks, apples, pines pulled from the Sierras,
yukkas wrenched from the Mojave,
trucked in, arboreal bodies wrapped in burlap,
the dirt on their roots singing of wind
and winter rain, of a reach no genius knows.
I stand outside and put my hands through the fence.
I want to free each trunk and limb,
shake each carefully clipped canopy.
But I too want this same wealth,
a wilderness all my own, a vining abundance.
Hilary King is a poet originally from Virginia and now living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her poems have appeared in Salamander, TAB, Door Is a Jar, and other publications. She is the author of the book of poems, The Maid’s Car and is currently studying for her MFA degree at San Jose State University.
Gerald Friedman teaches physics and math in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. His poetry has appeared in various journals, and his photographs and photo-poetry hybrids have appeared in Santa Fe Literary Review, DailyHaiga, and contemporary haibun online. You can see some of his writing at https://jerryfriedman.wixsite.com/my-site-2 and more photographs at Flickr.