185. Thoughts Within a Can of Peaches

The orchards are empty, the persica branches are bare,

The grass grows yellow and thin.

A few crows hold steadfast against the wind, if they can.

November beats against the bristlecone pines.

This old house rattles, cold halls made hollow.

And I am in the kitchen eating peaches.

In the cold kitchen with the sweetness of peaches,

The last of summer’s bounty brought to bear.

A single yellow light shows the shelves, empty and hollow.

Yes, the pantry is silently starving, the fridge is growing thin.

Breadcrumbs dirty an old cutting board made of pine.

In the larder, there is but a box of raisins and two soup cans.

I’ll remember August, summer’s sun and her sweetness, if I can.

With each slice and syrup from a cold peach.

“Tomorrow,” I think, “I must take the dirt road,” guarded on both sides by pine

To the grocery, before Thanksgiving vultures pick them bare.

But tonight I can be hungry, stark silent, and thin.

With only cold yellow peaches to warm my belly, grumbling and hollow.

My bones grow empty and hollow (and how hollow!).

My unwashed hands grow cold, wrapped around the refrigerated peach can.

The unkempt branches of my hair are growing white and thin (and how thin!).

My face is unshaven, my wrinkled skin is soft like fuzz from a peach.

I have removed my sweater, kicked socks off cold feet now bare (how cold and how bare!).

Under my nails, the dirt from August’s yellow fields mixes with sap from the bristlecone pines.

I have worshiped these yellow fields, the true gods of Sun and Soil, of Peaches and Pine.

I have placed the first of each harvest on the altar, now empty and hollow.

I have given my final sacrament, which now the vultures pick bare.

Cold November has taken the last of my harvest, December will take more if it can.

“I will not eat peas or squash,” I think, “I will not eat white or yellow peaches,”

Except from a can, as the stark vultures and silent crows pick me thin.

In my old mind, summer’s bounty beats and rattles, and wears me thin.

The warm syrup sun, and yellow fields for which I pine.

A market, a people, a woman, and on the branches there will be peaches.

The birds will sing sweetly in the persica hollow. (and how beautiful a hollow!)

I will kick off my socks and wash my hair in the cold river, because I can.

The echoes of August and her harvest, my cross to bear.

Tomorrow, or tomorrow, I will take the dirt street where all ghosts meet, hollow and thin.

I will, if I can, live again as summer, and the soil, and the bristlecone pines.

But it is November, and I am in a bare kitchen, eating the last can of peaches.