There is an orchard that no one owns,
Where stories echo as trees grow old.
The wind hums a choir through hollowed stones,
Of youth once bright, now turning cold.
But first it starts with bright green leaves,
Fattened fruit, and healthy seeds.
A gentle lie the summer weaves,
Before frost comes with silver weeds.
It picks the petals off the rose,
To see the brittle secrets shown.
It walks the path no mercy knows,
To hear the shape of undertone.
The orchard shifts, the soil dries,
The apples bruise, the peaches sour.
The honey sags beneath the flies,
And the sweetness wilts by the hour.
The birds circle and take what shimmers,
Never mourning the branches stripped.
Their gentle claws are practiced trimmers,
With nectar coating each bit they’ve dipped.
The shadows stretch along the rows,
Where whispered time dissolves the air.
A hollow murmur only grows,
And leaves a taste of something rare.
You stand witness to every season,
Collecting ripeness with the rot.
Too young to name the creeping treason,
Too old to claim you feel it not.
The orchard never speaks its warning,
It simply is, and was, and will,
A blooming elegy by the morning,
A song of loss the twilights fill.
And so…
The wind will tell you, if you stay,
Of all the things that fade and fray.
For time will take, and leave, and sever,
And nothing waits for you forever.