Conrad Siever by Edgar Lee Masters — Read

Not in that wasted garden / Where bodies are drawn into grass / That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens / That bear no fruit --

There where along the shaded walks / Vain sighs are heard, / And vainer dreams are dreamed / Of close communion with departed souls --

But here under the apple tree / I loved and watched and pruned / With gnarled hands / In the long, long years;

Here under the roots of this northern-spy / To move in the chemic change and circle of life, / Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree, / And into the living epitaphs / Of redder apples!