Bearing Fruit in Old Age

This poem won a third place award in the Summer 2009 Time of Singing poetry contest: Trees.


Bearing Fruit In Old Age

One spring day a farmer
hammered eight nails,
long and rusty, into the trunk
of an aging apple tree
that quit bearing fruit.

That autumn the tired old tree,
having been goaded back to life,
produced a bumper crop of juicy
red apples, bigger and better
than had been seen before.

When asked what happened,
the farmer explained:
"Hammerin' in the rusty nails
gave it a shock to remind it
that its job is to produce apples."

                                 --Betty Spence