A Delight and a Lament

by Rev. Joseph R. McKenna

Oh I will be there when that special week
In May comes ’round, and all the apple trees
Give out their cotton candy blossoms: pink
and white and look like you could eat them
For desert. Each year I’m fooled because before
The week is ended they are only petals on the ground.

Okay, the petals fall but tiny fruit
Begins to form from them, and when fall comes
We’ll be eating apples . . . and cherries. But can I make a lament
Why is there always such great haste to get on
With the fruit? To hurry on to fall . . . to autumn.
I’m in the autumn of my life now and it’s okay
There are things that can be said about it that are nice.
But why couldn’t the cotton candy hang around . . .
Just a bit longer?