Apples

Luisa A. Igloria

April 1

"Where there is gravity there will always be apples."                                                 ~ Jessica Hincapie   In the biblical story of creation, the apple glows in the center of the garden, shiny  and tempting as if it is the first Whole Earth  Catalog. Some other versions of that story  posit the apple was really a pomegranate,  or more likely a fig since art works through  the ages show Adam and Eve covering  their genitals with fig leaves after their fall. A tree stands in the garden of the School  of Physics at the University of York, reputedly  a descendant of the very tree from which  an apple fell in the summer of 1666, leading  to Newton's discovery of terrestrial gravitation.   In late July all the way into fall, fruit bloom and ripen in orchards. There's enough  for apple-picking, and more than enough that toppled to to the ground. Gravity works  on the weight each apple carries in its belly: gravity the force that causes the apple  to drop from the tree, that also anchors  the moon in place. Surrounded by scent of apple blossom and sugar, plump  cheeks tinged with a little red and yellow,  don't you want to think of apples more  than you want to think of gravity  and all the ways it means to fall?