North Woods

by Daniel Mason

Now, in the place that was once the belly of the man who offered the apple to the woman, one of the apple seeds, sheltered in the shattered rib cage, breaks its coat, drops a root into the soil, and lifts a pair of pale-green cotyledons. A shoot rises, thickens, seeks the bars of light above it, and gently parts the fifth and sixth ribs that once guarded the dead man’s meager heart.

Take a man in perfect health, and let him assert against the general opinion, and you will find such man accused of deviancy, or error, or madness.

I have come to the opinion, generally, that he who does good to the land shall be protected, while he who trespasses upon her will be met with most violent return.

And so, for the second time in seventy-five years, a child’s apple led a grown man to the north woods place.

she has found that the only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.