There’s a comfort in this melancholy,
an old blanket fraying at the edges,
pockmarked with holes, too thin to provide warmth,
but familiar, that coarseness over skin,
a retreat into something I know well
when battered by anxieties of hope,
something to pull over me when I fear
a mild air will caress my bare skin,
and I will be tempted to close my eyes
and taste the crispness of a ripe apple
picked from the orchard behind my old house
where I laughed with people who are long gone
and dreamt of days when I would turn the soil
after a calm rain refreshed the deep roots.