Spoon River Anthology · Chapter
Russell Kincaid explained
Russell Kincaid reflects on his final spring, sitting in a forsaken orchard and contemplating the ruined apple tree with its delicate blossoms that will never bear fruit.
What happens
Russell Kincaid reflects on his final spring, sitting in a forsaken orchard and contemplating the ruined apple tree with its delicate blossoms that will never bear fruit. He compares his own spirit, trapped in a half-dead body and numb senses, to the tree's phantom blossoms shining over lifeless boughs, and laments the earth that leaves us before heaven takes us, wishing he had been a tree to fall in the cyclone that swept him out of the soul's suspense.
Themes in this chapter
Death and Legacy
Russell Kincaid contemplates his own impending death and the fleeting nature of life, symbolized by the apple tree's blossoms that will never bear fruit.
Unfulfilled Lives and Repression
The image of the apple tree with its ruined trunk and blossoms that never grow into fruit reflects a life unfulfilled, and Kincaid's spirit is girded by a half-dead body and numb senses.
Characters to notice
- Russell Kincaid
The speaker of the poem, reflecting on his final spring and his own mortality, comparing himself to a ruined apple tree.
Key passages
“In the last spring I ever knew, In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered The hills at Miller’s Ford; Just to muse on the apple tree With its ruined trunk and blasted branches, And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle, Never to grow in fruit.”
During my final spring, I sat in an abandoned orchard, looking at the hills beyond the green fields, and thought about the apple tree with its broken trunk and dead branches, whose new green shoots had blossoms scattered over the dead wood but would never produce fruit.
Kincaid describes the setting and the central metaphor of the ruined apple tree.
“O earth that leaves us ere heaven takes us! Had I been only a tree to shiver With dreams of spring and a leafy youth, Then I had fallen in the cyclone Which swept me out of the soul’s suspense Where it’s neither earth nor heaven.”
Oh earth, you abandon us before heaven receives us! If I had been just a tree, trembling with dreams of spring and youth, I would have been swept away by the cyclone that took me from this state of limbo between earth and heaven.
Kincaid expresses a wish to have been a tree, which would have been destroyed by the same force that removed him from his suspended state between life and death.