The Milk White Maiden and Heart Red Apples

(image credit)

When I saw this image, then read the note from Jerome Brown, I knew there was poetry in it.  To be sure, the lady is very beautiful, but just as beautiful are his candor and his demure.  Two months later, here is my poem:

Sir Isaac never told that tale of apples
     Fall by the dozen, and he never knew
The milk white maiden deign to gather them -
     Demure and innocent - as if she knew
The lean and bend and pull that gravity
Required of her, and knew instinctively.

No doubt, he would have formulated force
     Entirely of another sort - celestial, yes -
But nearer than whatever body held
     His head up to the heavens, as near as heart
Red apples in her hands, and whisk of hair,
And slope of bone, and cloth that held her fair.

The Milk White Maiden and Heart Red Apples © Ron Villejo