yield

[CRNDLSM]

Thanks for reading and commenting.  You are right that it was a metaphor for a pointless thankless task - in this case, "Apple Picking" is an allusion to Frost's famous poem and our N here is  indeed a poet - as much as it hurts to say.  Many of the lines are plucked from famous poems or famous writers and it is merely a lament that Poetry is really not a valid art form anymore - this is why he loves and curses Frost the same

Made even sadder and realer by the reader's inability to catch the pluckings.  With the cia psyop making Jackson pollock a valid artist, or geeses psyop getting on Saturday night live, I wonder if poetry ever had one too, or if it's just always been, 'the original art form', to which I'd say it's possibly the most valid, if least recognized.  What to do but lament... Your explanation makes it better, but that's art