Early morning,
post-dawn mountain mist
sifted down the rock ledges
phlegmatically
and with a slowness
suggesting
saturnine lethargy.
The remaining
Smoky Mountain steep peaks
and rolling, highway-sliced
valleys
lay between
my father’s Thunderbird
and my first year
in college.
In the lap
of a hairpin bend
of two-lane asphalt
crouched
an apple and cider stand;
predatory,
and advantageous
for August travelers
in stationwagons
packed with families
homebound from Gatlinburg
and mountain-bewitched
to repletion.
It caught my eye,
this shadowed stand,
and we stopped.
The apples were arranged
in appealing
red and green baskets;
burnished, ripe,
and fragrant;
glittering
in the soft sunlight that fell
in grated wedges
through the leaves.
But what arrested me
more fervidly
was their vendor.
Behind the neat,
russet rows,
he sat silently;
languid eyes
that were woodbrown
and open,…
a smile
that only revealed
half a soul,
like a window
partially drawn wide,…
hair that draped
in a silken frame
around his lean
face…
I felt myself
move closer,
beckoned by
something in the hush
of nearby mountain springs,
the scent of apples,
and the apparent
strength of his hands.
I asked faintly
for a basket
of apples,
handed him a dollar,
and watched
as he wordlessly
and unceremoniously
emptied them
into a brown
paper sack.
“The basket’s not included.”
he said.
Those eyes withdrew
and I clutched the sack
as I crept back
to the car.
Isn’t it just like a man
to empty a basket
of apples
into a sack?
We drove on in silence.
