Old cherries

    It was a good idea, cutting away

    the vines and ivy, trimming back

    the chest-high thicket lazy years

    had let grow here. Though it wasn't for lack

    of love for the trees, I'd like to point out.

    Years love trees in a way we can't

    imagine. They just don't use the fruit

    like us; they want instead the slant

    of sun through narrow branches, the buckshot

    of rain on these old cherries. 

Nathaniel Perry

Nine Acres

  Re-making a

  Neglected Orchard

  [fragment]

op. cit.

2011©

Saul Leiter
1923-2013
undated