In our 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.
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 its 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 autumn’s 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 fruit’s 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.
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