“
I decide to be proactive. “Hey, be careful with them apples,” I call out, imitating a harsh Mike voice. Mike always shows up in his ragged, half-rotten clothes and tells us how to do things, like he’s some kind of big expert. All faces turn toward me, including Dutch’s equine one. Dutch cants his head to one side to examine me with one great eye. They all get the joke and laugh. Mark tosses me an apple. It comes tumbling to me in a long golden arc like something out of mythology. The throw is so expert that I easily catch it. I take a bite, and get lost for a moment in its sweet juiciness, get lost in the whole idea of an apple tree, how it makes sweet food out of sunlight and earth. I think about how the tree spreads out above ground to catch air and light and below ground to catch water, minerals, and nourishment; about how at the end of the season it drops its leaves at its feet to reabsorb their nutrients. There is such Knowingness in this bite that I feel I have just eaten from the tree of knowledge. Stewart looks benevolently down at me from Dutch’s back. He is only twenty and has a ruddy face that glows with health and openness. He embodies the very bloom of youth. His young muscled body sits easily on the horse; his dark brown eyes are alive with merriment and friendliness. The whole scene is like a painting from another time. The Apple Pickers. I see it frozen for a moment, but then, in the silence of our greeting, a jet passes overhead, far away, in a series of deep distant rumbles that makes the canvas shimmer for a moment, reminding me that there is more to this moment than the simplicity that meets the eye.
”
”
Arnold W. Porter (In a Time of Magic)