For Maxine Kumin

An apple tree may live about as long 
as a horse, and our old Jonathan, 
now rickety and lame with foot rot, 
must surely be close to its end, but today 
it leans into yet another March, 
wheezing with bees. Each spring we think 
we've seen the last of its cedar-spotted, 
tart abundance, then September arrives 
and there in the dewy, leafy grass 
lie those familiar, rusty harness bells, 
and as they drop around us we can hear 
the youthful sound of galloping.