Down in the orchard upward thrust leaves like olive branches arching. In the foundation wild with seed, fireweed spoke and poked where once was fire. Black raspberries, better than all, like faceted jewels, sweet.
The level land stretched from this clump in a surprise, amazing in its shallow valley, and the swing swung upwards and outwards, flying.
I touched a mole, there in the hay, saw a track of something running, quivering, opened the heads of the timothy, parted them, startled the mole to stillness, tiny, blind as a mole, red snout like the nipple of a baby doll‘s bottle. What was it revealed, so black, so still? I bent and put my finger on it, ran along its black back. It froze. I let it free, its track in the high grass shivering.
55
Bellies of hills, steep as the sides, the breath of woman, speaking, calling. One was born to roll there. Next to grass, wild pasture, Swiss in its alpine plots of flowers, varied, patched with moss, steeplebush like heather, roots and berries.
Down in the old foundation a green apple tree holding green moons up to a sky blue as a world, standing in the bright wild pasture one held the glory, the steeplebush held up its clusters, tiny, dark pink fringed tiny flowers held on a flat stalk, down in the orchard the curved, crooked, meeting, gray rough smooth olive and shining apple branches held.
They held the light, the light was flat, we stood in a bowl of light, the sky was blue and flat and all around us and shot with rays like an apple. We were pinned securely to the earth by the sky, and we held up our amazing and wonderful arms.