*Jan 31 2026 | The Apple Trees at Olema by Robert Hass

This is a favorite poem of mine by a professor I took several classes with at UC Berkeley. He taught me that it was okay to stay prosey in my poetry, as well as how to write a sonnet. He was Poet Laureate of the US in the 90s. This is from his collection Human Wishes:

The Apple Trees at Olema by Robert Hass

They are walking in the woods along the coast
and in a grassy meadow, wasting, they come upon
two old neglected apple trees. Moss thickened
every bough and the wood of the limbs looked rotten
but the trees were wild with blossom and a green fire
of small new leaves flickered even on the deadest branches.
Blue-eyes, crane's-bills, little Dutchmen
flecked the meadow, and an intricate leopard-spotted
leaf-green flower whose name they didn't know.
Trout lily, he said; she said, adder's tongue.
She is shaken by the raw, white backlit flaring
of the apple blossoms. He is exultant,
as if some thing he felt were verified,
and looks to her to mirror his response.
If it is afternoon, a thin moon of my own dismay
fades like a scar in the sky to the east of them.
He could be knocking wildly at a closed door
in a dream. She thinks, meanwhile, that moss
resembles seaweed drying on a dock.
Torn flesh, it was the repetitive torn flesh
of appetite in the cold white blossoms
that had startled her. Now they seem tender
and where she was repelled she takes the measure
of the trees and lets them in. But he no longer
has the apple trees. This is as sad or happy
as the tide, going out or coming in, at sunset.
The light catching in the spray that spumes up
on the reef is the color of the lesser finch
they notice now flashing dull good in the light
above the field. They admire the bird together,
it draws them closer, and they start to walk again.
A small boy wanders corridors of a hotel that way.
Behind one door, a maid. Behind another one, a man
in striped pajamas shaving. He holds the number
of his room close to the center of his mind
gravely and delicately, as if it were the key,
and then he wanders among strangers all he wants.

>1 doctorofphysick: Thank you, Nick. Another stunner for our rolling anthology. Lucky you to be taught by Hass. What a thought-provoking lesson he gave, very much seen in this poem. I, too, am convinced. What this poem has in spades is keen observation and movement.

I yield the floor to others. I always so look forward to the comments here! And in the meantime, to think on this poem over the next hours and days.

Thanks to this group, my list of poets that I want to read has absolutely grown to an unmanageable number. How will I ever get to all I want to experience? I need to retire, stat, so every day is Saturday.

>1 doctorofphysick: Thank you for posting this. Hass is often fascinating as a poet known as much for his haiku translations as his own poetry, even a longer poem like this one features some stark imagery that challenges the reader inclination to find connections. Love the contrast between the rotting, moss choked limbs of the trees and the limbs that are 'wild with blossom,' and the woman's changing view from repulsed to something more entranced.

Hass's challenge for me comes from that brief appearance of the 1st person speaker in the middle saying "IF it is afternoon, a thin moon of my own dismay/fades like a scar." The conditional statement, his dismay, the jump from the meadow to the corridors of the hotel, perhaps connected in the speaker's memory. The great thing about Hass is, even when there are things to puzzle out, they're worth the effort.

>3 DebiCates: Hope that day is getting closer for you.

>5 TonjaE: Thank you, Tonja. I'm just trying to pin down a date this year, with all the planning that takes to be ready, for me and for my job--soon to be "old job."

crumbs I have A little Book on Form by Robert Hass, whichj I will be referring to this year as I do experiements in my poetry workbook here. >1 doctorofphysick: thanks for sharing this and will read it a few more times through the week.

What a privilege to be taught by a poet laureate. I wondered if he included his own poetry in the class?>1 doctorofphysick:

I thought I hadn't come across him, but then read that he translated Milosz, and I have read (some of) his collections.

In terms of the poem, I fell down a rabbithole with the descriptions of the flowers. I wasn't sure what they looked like, as I don't know US flower names, but thanks to wikipedia, I now have a lovely image of a colourful, flower filled meadow (in contrast to the grey winter scenes outside RN!) Thank you.

Blue-eyes, crane's-bills, little Dutchmen
flecked the meadow, and an intricate leopard-spotted
leaf-green flower whose name they didn't know.

>4 DAGray08: Thank you for your commentary! I agree with you about Hass' challenge. He dares the reader to follow him into his memory through the windows of his imagery. He always talked about the allusive and suggestive power of the image, and he reached for Pound and William Carlos Williams as examples.

The line involving the moon is what always grabbed me about this particular poem, and I think it's the reason it's stuck with me the most. We've all had the experience of suddenly noticing a crescent moon in the daytime sky, a sort of abrupt visitor from a different narrative. I think Hass captures and utilizes that experience well, channelling that uncanniness.

>8 charl08: I liked the mention of wildflowers, too. The thing about common names, though, is what Californians call Blue-eyes may not be the same plant Texans call Blue-eyes. Wonder if a poet has ever used the Latin name in a poem. ha!

Hm, seriously, if anyone ever sees that, let me know. I'd like to read a poet that does that.

>4 DAGray08: >9 doctorofphysick: One of the things I like about this poem is the shifting views, even the changes of moods within a single person. I'm not sure I've noticed that in any other poem.

I could not help but think of the Le Guin short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," though I have no reason to believe Hass knew of it let alone intended the allusion. Nevertheless, it cast a somber shade over my reading of the poem. Interesting when such associations make such an outside impression on my reading of something! It's almost a cousin of that more commonly-mentioned influence, expectations whether from learning something about a piece secondhand before reading it oneself, or simply from the popularity of something, or of course from marketing efforts.

In this case, I presume it was just the similarity between Omelas and Olema, a part of rural California I wasn't familiar with before.

For those unfamiliar with the Le Guin story, there is a wikipedia entry with a good account of it, but be warned there are spoilers for the story.

I love that short story

>12 elenchus: LeGuin's story is one of my favorites, too. (Along with Jemisin's response story, The Ones Who Stay and Fight.) The brilliant white flaring apple blossoms with the rotted wooden limbs underneath does give that impression of the white city and the dark secret in the basement.

Reading the poem again this morning, I am struck by the free associations made there, maybe similar to Le Guin occurring to me unbidden.

They admire the bird together,
it draws them closer, and they start to walk again.
A small boy wanders corridors of a hotel that way.
Behind one door, a maid. Behind another one, a man

I read this as the poet observing the couple as they in turn watch a bird, and the way they walk reminds the poet of another person, the boy in the corridor, which then links to the maid, and so to the man. From one to the other, like memories or mental images, links in a chain.

>14 DAGray08: You mention Jemisin's response story, which I've not read though I've recently finished a few other pieces by Jemisin and enjoyed them quite a bit! The associations keep coming, as they do.

>12 elenchus: It's really strange but I momentarily made that same connection with Le Guin's story, and for the same reason, that nearness of place name. I had just read the short story for the first time last month.

>14 DAGray08: I didn't know about the Jemisin story, "The Ones Who Stay and Fight" but I had read another response story "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" by Isabel J Kim. I just now found an online copy of the Jemisin story in Lightspeed magazine and will now read it, too. https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

It's interesting that Le Guin wrote that story in response to William James in "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life", an 1891 essay, and now here are two others in response to Le Guin. Although I don't see a connection in the content of this poem, it has been fun to go Le Guin rabbit hole hunting.

>4 DAGray08: I've re-read the poem several times now, and that line does stick out, causing me to ask who is this speaking, briefly? Then later, as the apple tree pair walk and talk about the bird, there is knowledge of what is going on at the hotel, seeing what they don't see, can't see. Is this some omniscience? The poet himself, like a ghost floating above the poem in his mind's eye, commenting on what he sees, what he even might imagine he sees, something that distracts him from the couple?

It is unusual.

>17 DebiCates: It's an interesting contrast between the two stories that mimicks the their two real worldviews. LeGuin's Omelas ideal is purity and reverence, clean white facades. Jemisin's Um-Helat ideal is diversity and joy. Each asks what is the price they will pay to maintain that (and how that echoes the worlds the authors saw).

Now I'm going to have to look up the James essay and the Kim story. I feel we're pulling on a string that's connecting a lot of unexpected things.

>1 doctorofphysick: I am still grappling with the line:

"He is exultant,
as if some thing he felt were verified,
and looks to her to mirror his response."

The "some thing" that is "verified" and "looks to her" to "mirror his response". I know I love the line. Just haven't settled on why.

>20 xkyzero: I think I know what you mean. Hass is getting at certain unspoken truths in the way people (lovers specifically) interact with each other. This can be pleasant or provocative depending on where you’re coming from.

I think he’s describing how the male ego seeks validation in the other, as a sort of constant process that can be aggravating (the knocking wildly on the dream door). It can be funny, sad, or discomfiting to think about, but I like that the narrator seems nonjudgmental.

I read this through several times, and will keep coming back to it.