Orchard

In June 
I promised myself I would figure out
Where to plant more cherry trees
Not weeping cherry, but
Cherry pie cherry trees.
Now I remember what I was thinking about.

When we were little 
We’d pick cherries in the long bright dusk 
In the orchard our mother planted on Nebraska’s windy plains, her sturdy 
Cherry trees, and when we had enough
She baked pies for us

No pink-peach solstice light this year. 
It is strange. It’s beautiful but strange. 
The land is changing. 
It is lush, but somehow a little 
Drier than you might imagine. 

Now and then,
I feel the lightest drops of rain
Sitting outside, 
In this moment, moments perhaps,
The scented life, 
The life of pond, the life of here   
Is balanced
And there are fireflies. 

I have figured out where
I will plant cherry pie cherry trees, 
Far from memory’s 
Plains in gentle twilight, 
Here, in Seneca’s soft hills,
I leave you my orchard. 

July 20, 1969