Calvary

Whitefield, Maine

Now all that wood comes down.  No height resists
The extracting demands of business.

I see they respected the orchard,
Derelict though it is, feral blood
Rising in each apple unatoned.

Night-deer surge through April rain,
Shift the field in speculating turn.

Men will still speak in Indian yards,
Tell stories of that orchard’s buried gold, the depositing pirates,
Still come on Sundays with their beer and spades.

The trail they used to follow will be gone,
All the woods are coming down.

That orchard now stands like a wound.
Forgive the passions of men.

Nicholas Pierpan