FootprintsintheWind.com

Apple orchards, apple trees
Into the orchard behind our country house
I would throw the oranges
My mother sent in my lunch box
When I tried to peel them
Their juice would only burn my fingers
Where I had been biting my nails

Into the orchard beside my grandmother’s house
When I was staying over to sleep
In their big feather bed up in the attic
Into that orchard I would call from the bathroom
For my Grandma’s help
Before I knew how to use the toilet paper

Down the street from our house in town
Lived a crab apple tree
And one year I bit into its fruit
And spit it out surprised at its dry bitterness

The apple orchard at my grandmother’s house
So squarely and perfectly planted in rows it was
Is now gone. The new owners wanted it for yard
Or maybe the trees grew old
And the one behind my parents’ house is also gone
To be a farmer’s field
And my grandparents and parents are gone, too

:- Doug.