Poetry break!

This was inspired by an absolutely incredible day of, first, conservation work, and then, a little apple picking expedition with friends.

Apple-picking in Late Afternoon

And, when we’d come back—across cloud-gray piles

of driftwood, beach grass

laid flat by the tide, jeweled with tiny mussels—there

were apples

shook down from trees into hands

puckering mouths

unable to contain the shouting laughter

that had rung out all day

stringing together—the baritone and alto and high

we strange

seabirds, we gulls

and now, we grazers, joy-slaked

juvenile deer, rubber boots stamping out

our stakes: this patch of nettles, this old-growth

orchard—hills swept with wind

and with light—this

red-leafed spreading tree,

to which we can do little

but gasp, and paw, and exclaim—

look at it will you

just look

just look