Thursday 6 September 2007

After Apple Picking

The text first, just in case ...

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After Apple-picking

MY long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. 5
But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass 10
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell, 15
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear. 20

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound 25
Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, 30
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap 35
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his 40
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

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And now some talk ...

About the Poem


I am not very fond of biography and stuff like that, so i shall not get into the relation between Frost's life and the poem. Let us focus squarely on the text:

Overview


After Apple Picking is a poem about apples, obviously, and about picking them. The poem uses apples as a metaphor for dreams, and suddenly, the entire enterprise of apple picking transforms into a fable of life.

Each apple in the orchard is a dream one has -- an ambition. Something one wants to achieve before one dies. Of all the apples that the tree of life offers us, some get picked; some others fall off the tree or slip from the apple picker's hands and fall on the ground to be thrown into the cider heap, and some apples just don't get picked. Similarly, some dreams we are able to fulfill; many we are unable to bring to fruition, and many others we are simply unable to even consider for fulfillment.

And then one grows old, and one knows that death lurks close at hand. There are dreams that still need to be fulfilled, and there is the pain that one feels while thinking of dreams that went straight to "the cider heap" of things that could have been. And one knows that one is too old to try fulfilling any more dreams: But I am done with apple-picking now. But dreams don't die all that easily! Swaying and nodding in the lullness that precedes sleep, the old man knows what will trouble his sleep. Dreams of all those apples he didn't pick -- dreams he was unable to fulfill -- will fill his sleep, making him uncomfortable until the Big Sleep envelopes him. This poem thus is also about one of the biggest fears the human soul has at the end of life: finding out the end the of it all that all that is left is a life wasted. There was a poet called Ezra Pound who put it most beautifully when he said, "I have only one thing to regret: a botched up life."

A Deeper Look

Let us now look a little more closely at the text of the poem, going line by line:

MY long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,


In a poem called "Playthings," Rabindranath Tagore writes:

"In my frail canoe i struggle to cross the sea of desire,
And forget that I too am playing a game."

Just as the canoe was Tagore's vehicle of choice in the sea of desire, the ladder is Frost's vehicle to get at his dreams in the tree of life. The ladder goes rises from the base of the tree, goes through it, and rises beyond it, pointing straight to heaven. This gels very strongly with Frost's central theme of human choice and action. For example, you could always look at poems like The Road Not Taken, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Come In, etc. Frost's point is that the choices we make and the action we take on our choices determines our life on Earth and our fate in heaven.

And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.


It is nearing winter, and apple picking is nearly done for the year. But there still are some barrels that remain to be filled with apples, and there still are some apples on some boughs (branches) that need to be picked. There is a parallel, of course, between the evening of the day, the end of the apple picking season, the winter of the year, and the end of our apple picker's life. But there still are a few days to be lived, a few barrels to be filled; and there still are some apples to be picked and put into the barrels as there are dreams that remain to be fulfilled.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Rather evident. The apple picker is tired of apple picking, of work, of chasing his dreams throughout his life. He knows there are some more left to pick / fulfill, but he is done and tired. "Essence," as he says, "of winter sleep is on the night," and he is "drowsing off," while the air around is charged with the scent of apples, with resonations of dreams jostling around in his mind for fulfillment.

"But I am done with apple-picking now." I am ready for my sleep, my rest, my hibernation, my death.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.


And in the temporary mirror he makes of a scoop of clear water, the apple picker can see that everything around him is suddenly different, suddenly, "strange." And that strangeness will just not get rubbed away. It is almost as if he were walking in his dreams, picking his last apples in the drowsy sleepiness that has waited a long time coming. In the green orchard full of apple trees, winter is setting in. The grass has gone hoary: old, may be gray. But all around him is old and nodding off to sleep, or hibernating, or quite simply dying. And his temporary mirror melted through the gaps between his palms, "and I let it fall and break." That was the last nirvana: that final giving up of illusions and stepping into the strangeness of dawning truth.

But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.


Rather clear, this part, especially if you have read the explanations that have preceded it. Even as the new strangeness hits him, the apple picker is about to fall of to sleep. But he already knows what will haunt his dreams: apples floating and turning end to end; dreams of things that could have been.

In a poem called Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot says:

"Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened"

Not very unlike the apple picker's dream, eh?

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.


Back on Earth, in the meantime, the apple picker can feel his instep (Part of the foot covered by the shoelaces) maintain pressure on the lader, keeping him aloft among the appl-laden boughs. And as the boughs sway in the breeze, the ladder follows suit.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.


And even as apple picking gets done, and winter is in the air, the apple picker can hear the rumbling sound of more loads of apples rolling in. More dreams, more desires. Some fulfilled, some not. And the sound of the rumbling loads of apples is tempting, luring the apple picker back to his dreams, back to ambition. And thus does life hold us captive within our own selves.

For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.


Once again, this is self-evident. Looking back at life, the apple picker thinks that he is done apple picking. Not for the evening, not for the season, but for life. "I am overtired of the great harvest I myself desired," he says.

For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.


Apples that could not be saved from falling will edfinitely find their way to the cider heap, worthless in the eyes of all. But were they actually worthless? Fond memories of dreams dreamt, bitter-sweet memories of the fight for fruition, and the pain of watching the dream fail. "One can see what will trouble this sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is," says the apple picker.

Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.


But we do not know what kind of sleep it is: is there a waking up the next day, like normal sleep? Or is there a waking up come spring? Or is there, perhaps, a waking up come the next life? One knows not. But for this day, this season, this year, and this life, the apple picker is done. The dreams shall not go away, neither shall the pain of broken dreams -- fallen apples. But it is now time for rest, for sleep. The dreams can wait.

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Epilogue


I know I haven't covered everything that the poem has to offer. Partly because I don't have the time to do all that, and partly because I quite simply don't know enough. But that there is more there I am sure. What I have written above is merely one interpretation of what I have read. Do feel free to read the poem again and again and again, and as an when newer insights come your way, do let me know too.

For I have had enough of explanations ... I am outa here!

2 comments:

Megha said...

Hi! this ones just a payback. Thanx for having read my blog and commented. I never thought anyone reads it.
By the way u look a super literati or something. Things u wrote are hard for this bird brain. Anyways, wonderful writing skills!! kudos.

Rakesh Chaudhary said...

Thanks for your comment. I am sure there is a compliment somewhere here. :) If I were anything of what you said, my blog would have been easier to understand. Thanks anyways!