In orchard rows
cross legged and warm
the blonde girls blush,
and the tanned men with creases
unfold their lips and smile.
The pink lace of an apple tree
shudders with the laughter of children,
and when the yellowed air carries
them away, your voice rattles
in the drying leaves.
And I follow,
over slopping shadows
where the shimmering of poplars
high on waiting hills
is the wind moving to where you are.
And after holding close so long
an imagined something
that needed to be held, my hands
have found your laughter, my voice
a place to rest.
In orchard rows
on bending grass we sit,
and as your hair passes
over a branch, coiling in the wind
like a burned sunset,
the tree is no longer lonely for a swing.
words © 2000 Brock Bowman
image © 2000 Jon Reischl