Appled Things

After Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Pied Beauty"

Asia Miles, Pied and Peaced (colored pencil on paper, 2025). Used with permission.

“Appled Things” is my playful response to Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Pied Beauty,” which begins, “Glory be to God for dappled things….” In his poem, Hopkins (whom I am named after—my middle name is Manley!) celebrates dappled things from “finches’ wings” to “landscape plotted and pieced.” For my poem, I change “dappled” to “appled” and let the apple-ication of this poetically-modified seed change the core (okay I’ll stop!) of the poem.

Like “Pied Beauty,” my poem uses Hopkins’ curtal sonnet form, which compresses the already-compact sonnet to ¾ its normal size (more nerdy info in the footnote¹).

Beyond the clear first line reference (“Glory be to God for appled things”), I play around with “Pied Beauty” in a few other spots, especially the line “for family’s faces—gathered, pied, and peaced.” Hopkins uses both “pied” and “pieced” in his poem, but in different (more normal) ways, whereas I use their homonyms to evoke that post-Thanksgiving food-coma scene where a family is sitting around the table, perhaps with bits of pie crumb still around their mouths, deeply at peace—so, pied and peaced!

For all the lighthearted wordplay, the final lines subtly reframe the whole poem toward something deeper. All of these glorious things, from warm, delectable desserts to the warmth of families in all their “pied” diversity,² are only a foretaste of God’s goodness—“small sips of cider from the coming feast” of the new creation. Praise him!

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Appled Things

	after Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
Glory be to God for appled things—
   for gardens dappled rich with reds and greens;
      for brimming baskets; memories of Fall;
for still life paintings; banquets set for kings;
   kids’ lunches; teachers’ desktops; sundry screens;
      and gravity, taught by a sphere so small.
 
For strudels, crumbles, cakes, and all things sweet,
   the air alive with aromatic heat;
      for family’s faces—gathered, pied, and peaced;
small sips of cider from the coming feast:
                                Praise him.

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About the Artwork

The illustration above is by my friend Asia Miles, the endlessly creative leader of the Bangna Arts Community here in Bangkok, a group of artists that meets to create together, encourage each other, and reflect on the creative process.

Asia’s illustration Pied and Peaced was inspired by “Appled Things,” and we got to exhibit the two pieces together last year, which was super fun. And then Asia (who I’ve dubbed the Colored Pencil Queen) surprised me by drawing a completely new and improved version of the piece for this newsletter. Thanks Asia!

You can check out more of Asia’s work at www.asiarayemiles.com.

At a local art gallery last year with Asia Miles exhibiting “Appled Things” (typed up on her typewriter!) and her earlier watercolor-and-ink version of Pied and Peaced.

Thank you to Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry for originally publishing “Appled Things” in their 2022 issue.

Finally, thank you for reading! Please reply or comment below with any thoughts or questions about the poem, the illustration, or anything else. I’d love to hear from you!

1. The classic Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet is 14 lines divided into two stanzas of 8 and 6 lines. So Hopkins’ curtal sonnet, at ¾ the size, becomes 10½ lines divided into two stanzas of 6 and 4½ lines. Hopkins wrote three curtal sonnets, and while he always used an ABCABC rhyme scheme for the first stanza, he used a different rhyme scheme for the second stanza in each of the three—so I took the liberty of creating my own (less demanding) rhyme scheme for my second stanza (DDEEF). However, I actually used a tighter meter than Hopkins (iambic pentameter, not Hopkins’ more expansive sprung rhythm), which gave me far less syllables to work with. So writing this poem was a delightful challenge!

2. One of the delightful things about poetry is how one word can do multiple things at once! In this poem, I use “pied” to 1) shout out Hopkins’ original poem “Pied Beauty,” 2) describe people who have literally eaten pie, and 3) celebrate the multicolored diversity of families—both literally in terms of appearance (especially in my multiethnic family!) and metaphorically in terms of our different personalities, interests, etc. If this is true now, how much more will we experience this beautiful unity-in-diversity in God’s coming Kingdom!