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Rememberings is the story of a pop star, protest singer, and prophet.

I think the Galilee loved them
almost as much as I did.
Days waiting for fish, then hauling
nets through fresh fields of water, overflowing
with more than 140 kinds, scales and fins.
They spent nights mending nets, caulking boats,
bringing the balm of prayer to the sick hired men.

In our local grocer
I watch folks buy
at vast expense
tasteless, waxed
Red Delicious.
Surely that was not
what the Virgin offered
the Christ Child
in Memling’s diptych.

Unconsciously I begin
internally to chant:
Baldwin, Bramley Cox,
Cortland, Gravenstein,
Jonathan, Lodi,
Macintosh, Melrose,
Pippin, Rome, Russet,
Stamen, Winesap.

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
                      —Glenn Frey and Don Henley

Sing sweetly, sadly, gravely.

Beat the big chords from the baby grand.

Bring the full band, and a string quartet for the coda.

Strike a sympathetic note: Don’t your feet get cold?