Orchard

I went to an orchard at night.

I climbed the fence in the dark and what I beheld took me by no small surprise. The moon illuminated the trees with silver light, and each one held more apples than I could possibly have imagined!

They hung in great clusters like grapes, inflated and colored by a surreal dream: 

Grapes in Wonderland.

The branches of the trees sagged under their weight and I thought first of the strength of those thin fingers. Then, upon imagining how they would look freed of their burden, my impulse was to tear the apples down in a frenzy, and look again upon the trees with thier arms raised to the heavens, their breath no longer heavy and labored.

Instead I walked among them and considered their union. The apples are nourished by the veins that run through the bark. They grow to maturity, straining the tree to its very breaking point (its responsibility quite solemn).

Then fall.

And rot.

And return the tree’s sacrifice by giving birth to another tree, not unlike like the first.

And so my first intent (to pick and eat and feel full and strong) was undermined by the thought that maybe these apples are not for me (nevermind the fence). How could I remove one of these from the shade of its mother? Carry it far away and deny its nestling down to the grass and dirt, releasing it from its charge? Its responsibility? Its honor?

My hunger again asserted itself but after resolving that I would find one that seemed undeserving, I left, empty-handed. For I could not choose.