What's there in the apple trees
In her final year, grandmother began seeing Vietnamese people in the apple trees, there was something terrible about it. I had in my wallet – in God we trust – an eagle and a picture of a dead child who received napalm.
Now they play in the garden, black hair flashing through the branches, visiting bamboo shoots, happy and polite in our apple trees. And a tame bird flutters into flight with all manner of hues from the credit card window.
Childlike faith in anything is terrible and moving: land ownership, houses, apartments, cars, stocks, rental agreements so that one might grow as big as America and chop off the wrists and ankles of Indians like logs of alder branches for burning, for dog food.
Grandmother's smile had frozen in the warm boards' embrace. I would have liked to see a peaceful childlike expression but those Vietnamese had scared away the small birds from the trees grandmother tended.
You don't see an enemy in the apple tree? Come on! It's you who's there, and the pigeon on your credit card is a distraction. Look at the shoot! You have broken it and are trying to graft it onto a foreign branch.
Don't play the lamb! A lamb doesn't sell grenade detonators to war zones or lick its lips at the division of spoils. Don't play paralyzed! You have perfect limbs and they function flawlessly. Stop that stupid smile already! The fooling-no-one mask of your self-satisfaction.
Children come to visit. They believe what they're told, are nice and obedient. And you are used to living like lords, so much like lords that you don't get angry at name-calling. They are in front of you, Mr. Death, uncertain and helpless but from behind you are at their mercy.
When the year is your last you begin to see what's in the apple trees
Look, there it is
Original poems in Finnish by Ilpo Halo. Translated into English assisted by AI technology. Copyright remains with the author, Ilpo Halo.