I grow on branches and come in red or green, I’m crisp when fresh and sweet when eaten. I have a core but no heart, And my name once tempted knowledge at the start.

A gentle whisper in fabric's weave, a soft shield on a peach's skin, the tender shroud of an old TV screen's static dream.

I'm heard when fear makes lesser people flee, that others would condemn with mockery. A soldier shot to fame by cooking me, as did a sailor fond of greenery.

Seasons change, so do i. Grip loosens as time goes by. My brothers and i, we start to fall. Side to side we sway. I drag the air against earths pull. Resisting the inevitable. Herded together we swallow children whole. But laughter is all you hear.

I am the ancient wages of the soldiers march, The white rot of iron and the crumbling of the arch, I am the tears of the earth left behind by the tide, Where the thirsty find death with water on every side.