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Column 306

Remaking a Neglected Orchard

Intro by Ted Kooser
01.30.2011

My grand­moth­er Moser made won­der­ful cher­ry pies from fruit from a tree just across the road from her house, and I have loved fruit trees ever since. A cher­ry tree is all about giv­ing. Here’s a poem by Nathaniel Per­ry, who lives in Vir­ginia, giv­ing us an orchard made of words.

Remaking a Neglected Orchard

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. And we,
now that I think on it, want those
things too, we just always and desperately

want the sugar of the fruit, the best
we’ll get from this irascible land:
sweetness we can gather for years,
new stains staining the stains on our hands.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Nathaniel Perry, and reprinted from Gettysburg Review, Vol. 23, no. 1, Spring 2010, by permission of Nathaniel Perry and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.

Column 305