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Cider and Time Travel

In this last post we talked about cider being the transformation of apple juice as opposed to it being just made from apple juice. A thing that is made must be made at a specific time while a transformation is a gradual, slow thing that takes place over time or indeed through time. Cider is a wee parcel of history, a thing from the past that becomes the present with each sip and vice versa, a link between two distant points in time. This one started off as a normal article then morphed into a poem, sorry.

in sun and soil and rain the apple tree stands
a bridge that spans the space twixt here and the sun
feet anchored in soil with arms that run
in the wind, asleep with the winter will waken with spring
 
festoon the branches with blossom adored
Unique in the making a new life is formed
it sets out stall for the smallest of things
And cell by cell the summer adds rings

the thing that was earth now turns to fruit
by soil by sun by branch by root,
the light pours down and fills the cracks, the soil becoming sweet.
it shapes itself into a ball, and all
the colours of autumns sprawl are borne upon its cheek
 
The Apples now ripe come down to the ground
Suspended no longer they fall without sound
No more to be fixed tween us and the stars
a transformation, what’s lost now is found
 
now comes the maker as autumn arrives
with seasons and rhythms as old as the hills
from a time long before all the self-service tills
in short the fruits picked up inspected and stored
milled up and pressed up and largely ignored.
 
the sugars so recently won from the ground
the yeast break apart and strew them around
what the sun has made the earth will undo
and make it and break it and make it anew
the vapour escapes and leaves what remains
the gathering liquid with oak as its chains
 
winters go past while memories fade
until one day freed as a glass raised
the cider sipped the change complete
resolution to warmth and joy and heat
 
In every glass, the present and past the space between here and the sun
the moments are shared as time draws in and for a second, we're all just one.

time travel.