Plato’s pie was in the sky,
far off beyond the solar rim.
Augustine’s pie was up there too,
like a low-orbit satellite.
At least you could see it dimly through a telescope.
Aquinas had his pie baking in the hot oven.
You could smell it, see it, burn your hand on the pan
or your tongue on a bite if you weren’t patient.
Soren was never really happy unless he was eating his pie,
or even better, eating it again.
Wendell Berry’s pie was baked at home,
made with flour he ground himself with a mortar.
There it is browning in the oven now while he says his prayers.
Twenty miles away in the city,
two pies pass through the McDonald’s drive-through window.
They must, as one dollar just passed the other direction.
Not one of them except perhaps the last,
ever forgot that God made the apples.