Apple Hills Of Scythia

Apple Hills Of Scythia
© Surazeus
2026 05 03

Though apples fill my dreams with golden light, 
sweet scent of pungent juice sticky on skin, 
I have lost touch with blooming apple trees 
in this current life of wandering the land, 
so I want to plant them in my back yard 
to make cider and applesauce each summer. 

Since we discovered apples long ago, 
in high Tian Shan Mountains of Kazakhstan, 
land we named Scythia when we lived there then, 
we traveled far across the windy steppes 
in four-wheeled wagons Helios designed, 
planting seeds by streams all the way to Scotland. 

Awake under apple tree on the hill, 
I see red fruit gleaming in dawn sunlight 
that glitters in raindrops after wild rain, 
so I reach out my hand to grasp the sun, 
but shrink back when serpent among dark limbs 
hisses and bares sharp teeth of poisoned knowledge. 

My father Skyolder gives me magic wand 
I use to swat the serpent on its head, 
then knock apples that fall into my hands 
which I store in wolf-fur bags on my back, 
then dump them in baskets in backs of wagons 
that we pull to large kitchen by the river. 

My mother Scythia wearing long white gown 
teaches me to brew apples in sweet cider, 
cutting them into slices with slender blades, 
stirring them in cauldrons of boiling water 
with thick honey, berries, spices, and herbs, 
then storing cider in clay jars for winter. 

I long to return to Garden of Saka 
that flourished in apple hills of Scythia 
where Almaty City now thrives with life, 
for I hear in dreams of my aching heart 
voice of my mother calling me in woods 
where apples gleam bright on millions of trees. 

We ate apples from sacred Tree of Knowledge, 
we befriended horses with fruit of love, 
and we built wagons with wheels of the sun, 
then traveled far across Garden of Life 
more than five thousand years of eager hope 
to explore this world sea to shining sea. 

Now we know this huge world on which we dwell 
is round as the apple in Tree of Life, 
so I will plant apple trees everywhere, 
by every road in every town on Earth, 
so everyone may eat the Fruit of Knowledge 
that blooms from fertile spirit of the Earth.