-This poem reflects on an orchard after the harvest has been gathered, when empty branches, bruised windfalls, lingering insects, and abandoned ladders reveal how abundance gradually gives way to openness.
The baskets have been carried in,
the ladders lean against the shed,
and through the rows the branches show
more open sky than fruit or leaf.
Where apples crowded under boughs,
small hollows mark the flattened grass;
a few bruised windfalls sweeten earth,
their skins grown soft beneath the rain.
A thrush turns over fallen leaves,
then disappears beyond the rows;
the last wasps circle broken fruit,
their wings slowed by the afternoon.
By dusk, each trunk stands clear and dark
against the copper-colored west;
the gate swings once after we leave,
then settles back against its post.