Headline Poem 4/13/14 -- apples

(Photo credit Google Image)

I want to be respectful of the victims and family members of today's shootings in Kansas. This story inspired today's poem, but like so many poems, it is a piece of the headline, sometimes just a word, or sentence that leads to the actual focus of my poem of the day. The line that caught my eye today was, "If we had the slightest hint it was going to happen, we would have done everything we could to stop it." This is where today's poem becomes extremely loosely based on this headline, and more about a bigger picture, and whether or not certain events in life can or should be prevented. 

apples

rotten apples 
bear good fruit
sometimes
it is worth the time
it to cut around the
brown and 
mushy
to eat 
what tastes good, 
and is not
too badly bruised.

some apples taste better 
when they fade.
discard or 
pick another
to avoid the 
ugly,
and you 
ignore the sweet. 
you forget the tree. 

some think 
they will  
never pick a rotten apple. 
or 
never keep the one that fades,
but some 
do not know
that apples are like you
and me.