His body grows an apple he can pluck
to eat, and it regrows within the hour,
and you might call him lucky—but is luck
the gift that gives you sweet apples? Or sour?
Oh, but I tell you they are very sweet.
And very sweet to him, at least at first.
But if all that he does is sit and eat,
they settle in his stomach for the worst.
He will not eat until he’s far too full,
no, he knows when to stop. But he will crave
again that apple, ‘til his senses dull,
and eat it every day until his grave.
But it won’t be the apple that killed him.
You think that is the moral? No. Tuck in—
~
What is the moral here is that he tried
to share the apple often with the rest,
who would have seen, if they had just applied,
the sweetness that was his—the very best!
For however sweet that his apple was,
it would have been far sweeter for a friend.
That’s what any gift like that really does,
it’s meant not just for having, but to spend.
But nobody would eat his apple. No,
despite the way he offered it at length.
That is the story—and it goes to show:
indulgence is not always lack of strength.
For if you can’t share, though your fruit is sweet,
at least eat it yourself, for that is meet.