Poetry extracts by James Crowden

Extracts from
CIDER - THE FORGOTTEN MIRACLE
© James Crowden

Apple Haiku
Acres of blossom - Row upon row of neat petals Pulling them in.
	Orchards of peace dentify the first bite - Sweet taste of another world.
Juice flowing between narrow slats An orange waterfall That must be tasted.
	Dark surrounds the vast barrels Like a secret veil - Months of doing its own thing.
Worth waiting for First glass, first sip - Squeak of a tap.
	Stamped into the new cider's passport- Silent nod, Quiet murmur of approval.

Burrow Hill Cider Farm
There in the barn dark Inch by inch The steady inquisition The confession extracted As the press pushes home Ruddy brown and golden A river in flood Whole orchards The never ending tide Ebbing and flowing Mounds of apples Like long barrows Lagoons of red and yellow… Dabinett, Porter's Perfection Bloody Turk, Yarlington Mill Tremlett's Bitter, Tom Putt Their ransomed juice Vast in their yeast brooding Broad in the beam Their froth fermenting bellies Straps of iron, barrels A Norman trick Distilled and fiery	layer by layer gallon by gallon begins bit by bit life blood of the heathen apple like honey a hive of fruit pulped and crushed trailers acres deep and rounded tipped and spewed forth the farmyard filled to bursting Brown Snout and Chisel Jersey Stoke red and Kingston Black Lambrook Pippin Royal Somerset pumped to distant vats potent and powerful fecund and fattening bound with oak giant and gargantuan this drink from apples hint of orchard on the tongue…

Cider Haiku
The orchard first snugly Round our shoulders - Like an old overcoat.
	Hard pressed, the stream of juice Runs madly from the cheese - Autumn out of control
Invisibly we merge With the barrels - Are sucked into their darkness
	Their roundness catapults us Beyond the common place - A world apart.
All at once we are enveloped By the brooding silence - Ten thousand gallons.