Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘orchard’

Not That I Like It, But I Tell Myself

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 4, 2026| 12 Comments »


 
 
It is okay to be numb today, 
to be stuck, to not want to move.
It is okay to be so exhausted
with the ache of meeting the world 
that even the extravagant apple blossoms,
all fragrant and fluttersome, 
look like dingy white scraps, used tissues.
It is necessary, even natural 
to sometimes shut down, 
to let the self be cold. 
The wood frog can freeze 
up to seventy percent of its body water, 
can stop its own heart from beating, 
It knows that to freeze for a season
is one way to survive. 
It will thaw and revive come spring. 
It’s okay for a time to slow down. 
To slow to stopping.
To be more solid than flow. 
I remember the years in the orchard when, 
on the coldest nights, we watered the trees, 
knowing how the process of freezing itself
releases latent heat and becomes
a source of warmth for its surroundings. 
Oh wisdom of freezing. It’s not without cost.
Every fruit grower knows that some years, 
there are no apples. That is how it is.
Other years, we delight in what ripens. 
Those years, we feast on the sweetness.

Read Full Post »

At the Center of the Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
 
When no one
is looking
she touches
the wound
that hides
beneath
her smile
where the scion
of acceptance
was grafted 
to her rootstock
of stubbornness.
Most people
don’t notice
the scar,
focused as they are
on the fruit,
but she 
remembers
the cut, 
the tissue exposed.
How tenderly
she traces
that place
where the union
was formed. 
Since the wounding,
her fruits 
have become 
vibrant, complex, 
so sharp, even tart, 
and so sweet.
 

Read Full Post »

Late Summer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 28, 2022| 8 Comments »

            for Vivian and Christie


This lyric afternoon with its fruit trees
and friendship and barest kiss of rain,
is it so wrong to want to save it, the way
I will process the dark plums into jam?
Is it so wrong to want to preserve
the honeyed song of summer, the warmth
of sun, the pleasure of an afternoon
with my daughter and a friend?
An ovation of thunder.
Scent of basil. Purr of cat.
The creamy fuzz of the growing quince.
The joy as we try for the first time
black apricots, their skin so surprising,
their flesh so nectar-ish. I will freeze
most of the ripe blackberries we gathered,
will savor them come snow, come cold.
A day such as this is like yeast in wheat dough—
it’s not there just for taste, it’s the difference
between bread and a brick.
It invites a trust there will be other days
filled with elation. Dig in, it seems to say.
Don’t save for later what can only be lived today.
Even the disbelief that a day could be so good—
that too, tastes so nourishing, so sweet.

Read Full Post »

After a Frost

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

I remember walking the orchard rows

and picking ten flowers from ten apricot trees,

then opening them with my thumbnail,

one by one, peeling back the white petals

to reveal the telling heart. In some,

the pistil and style were still green,

in others, shriveled and black.

We could estimate percentages—

how much of the crop had survived.

 

It takes only a half an hour for a killing frost

to render barren dozens of acres of trees.

And what of the human heart? If it

had blossoms, could we count them, too,

and say after a cold spell, what chance

love had of staying on the tree? Is it

simply a matter of degree? And duration,

too, of course. Or is there something more?

 

Sometimes the loss of fruit is a blessing—

the tree can only support so much.

But is it the same with love? Is there

a kindness in loss? Or is love not like

the cherry tree, not like the apricot?

Does it want only to thrive, to blossom,

to offer as much as it can?

 

And let’s say there is no fruit.

Trees still need water, need nourishment.

So much investment for what looks

like a season when nothing will ripen.

Tell yourself, one season is not

the life of an orchard. Tell yourself

sometimes it’s worse than it seems.

Sometimes there’s life high up in the tree.

Sometimes it’s a killing freeze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Two Meanwhiles

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 17, 2013| 3 Comments »

turning black
all those apricot blooms
I am not thinking of

*

almost pink—
the orchard not the only place
about to bloom

Read Full Post »