The birds stripped the old tree
Of its fruit
In a single night.
Was it a dream, how they descended
From the sun--
The ravening eclipse?
Thirty years, not a stump remains
Of the orchard,
Only a field of mown grass.
Where the roots sucked everything
From the soil
There are shallow bowls.
My two girls appear, one singing,
One shouting,
Beseeching with arms wide.
Each day I reach up like branches
Into the light
To be devoured by caresses.
