Oct 21 prompt and poem

Today is National Apple Day. We say apples are very American – there is apple pie, apple crumble, apple cider, legendary Johnny Appleseed – and one of my favorite love tokens, apple cider donuts. I spent Saturday evening sipping hot apple tea in front of a talkative wood fire.

And apples are not just for eating; early Americans used carved apple for heads on dolls. I remember a time when I was about eight that my Dad – not only a wonderful artist but a fervent Halloween FX hobbyist – carved several apple heads for … something … I think it was a church Halloween event. I remember being amused how those faces quickly aged and shriveled in just a few days.

Apples, simmering with spices, have been our early air fresheners; apple vinegar our early cleansers and medications. And a red apple in the toe of a Christmas Stocking is a fond memory – something sure and anticipated when Santa comes – everything else you could wonder about. But that apple and orange were reliable, consistent.

And then we get to apples in October – Halloween parties with apple bobbing and witches. Witches cook up potions. And one of our most famous villains – the Evil Queen, the one we love to hate – used an apple as a vehicle for her potion.

So my spooky take on this – for today Oct 21 – is “poison apples”.

My sample on this is: Behind Closed Eyes. I wrote this after my husband had his last heart attack. He spent 2 weeks in a coma and we spent it waiting for him to wake up. Why the sleeping beauty theme? We spent three months that year at a local theater with his granddaughters, involved in a production of Sleeping Beauty. And we played the DVD over & over those two weeks just so he could hear his granddaughters voices – calling him back … from behind his closed eyes.

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My archive of blog’ poetry prompts is here.

You know I’m all about the prompts!

Ariel