August 30, 2018

The Orchards

by Maxine Scates

There were problems to be solved then,
decisions to be made. Now we walk and walk

through the orchards, the Cannery Orchard,
the Nursery Orchard, the Black Cherry Orchard.

We walk to the river, the far boundary,
high and wide, deep and brown, a ganglia

of branches tumbling, shooting down the rapids,
then caught by the branch of a downed tree. There’s

a man sitting on a bench aiming a long lens,
an old couple walking who stop to pet

our young dog. The Nursery Orchard makes me
think of how the decisions quieted, moved on,

how long ago I’d take those tests in secret,
and, never the right color, I thought it was him.

Later I found out it was both of us, and, oddly,
that made it better, our decision made. The young

trees in this orchard were grown for transplant,
or maybe they just took cuttings, because now

they’re as gnarled as the tree in the meadow
they call the Wedding Tree, which was split

in a storm, its fallen branches scattered
around the still living base. It’s the Goat Orchard

I keep wondering about, though—did the goats
run there the way the dogs do now

in their endless loops? Last night I saw a photo
of goats standing in the branches of a tree they climb

to eat its nuts. At first they looked much too heavy
to ride the branches, ten of them standing

in the same tree, and then they looked as light
as horned birds. So, yes, the decisions lessen

but the problems remain, the one about the heart,
the way it rises. The one about finding your way to it

as if walking in a maze of so many orchards
each one needs a name.