By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This page, titled 'The Apple and the Tree,' remembers years of handmade cards and gifts sent without response, turning neglected affection into a late, wounded question.
The corrected title sharpens the family or inheritance frame. The plainness of the grievance matters: holidays, handmade gifts, and the Monroe Post office make the silence feel cumulative, as if affection has been repeatedly sent out and left unanswered.
'The Apple and the Tree' is a plain prose grievance about unanswered affection. The speaker calls himself 'too much of an idiot in the woods / to make worry out of wonder' about the 'cards and hand made gifts that Bonney / used to go down to the Monroe Post office with / over a period of about five years with no response'. The inventory of occasions - 'Christmas, thanksgiving, Easter, / birthday, or just for the love of it' - makes the silence feel cumulative, and the piece breaks off mid-thought on 'However, I / do now...', as if the answer is only now arriving.