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A blackened cardboard cylinder lies in the moist soil.
My dad treks between the young apple trees,
Through the hip-high weeds Jitterbugging with the cool breeze,
And stoops down to pocket the empty firecracker.
He remembers last night, the red and blue Jello, the Tweetsie
fireworks show, our own clumsy firecrackers display.
He begins work, the grooming, the fencing, the fertilizing
Which, to him, is not just tedious repair and maintenance,
But instead, a way to relax and get into a rhythm and escape
day-to-day life.
There are always more trees to be planted, more weeds to be pulled.
He knows that the trees are young and needy.
He knows, one day, he will take down the crude fences that
encompass each one,
And the trees will stand without stakes
And provide sweet Pink Ladies and Albermarle Pippens.
He dreams of grandkids playing hide-and-seek in the neat rows of trees,
Sprinting after each other, shrieking,
Giggling like the brook that runs beside the orchard,
Their battered sneakers left sitting by the front door of the house.
He hears his old Labrador, the Senior Citizen, he calls her
Panting beside him, her aching limbs absorbing the July sun.
He thinks of next July in the orchard,
Will she still be there?
But for now, he reaches down to scratch her stomach,
And pulls a few weeds from the base of a Summer Rambo.
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