Let the apple ripen 
on the branch
beyond your need 
to take it down.

Let the coolness
of autumn 
and the breathing, 
blowing wind 
test its adherence 
to endurance, 
let the others fall.

Wait longer 
than you would, 
go against yourself, 
find the pale nobility 
of quiet that ripening 
demands,
watch with patience
as the silhouette emerges
and the leaves fall,
see it become
a solitary roundness
against a greying sky,
let winter come 
and the first 
frost threaten, 
and then wake
one morning 
to see the breath
of winter 
has haloed 
its redness 
with light

So that a full 
two months 
after you 
should have
taken the apple 
down,
you hold it in 
your closed hand
at last and bite 
into the cool 
sweetness 
spread evenly 
through every 
single atom 
of a pale 
and yielding 
structure,
so that you taste 
on that cold, 
grey day,
not only 
the after reward
of a patience 
remembered,
not only 
the summer
sunlight
of a postponed 
perfection,
but the sweet, 
inward stillness
of the wait itself.

From “Pilgrim”

© 2012 David Whyte