June tell me about how the land bear down upon us. How an awful shifting happen after Increase Darrow cut the ground and set his hands inside it and deliver a way our bodies not all the way ready for. A swelling and weeping after he turn the fields out and shift the streambeds by a new course. Nevermind what long buried lyssa might rise from below the skunk cabbage and squaw. Nevermind what burning ocean smell ought to tell you somewhat aint right. Because the young apple trees grow hale in their long rows set so and so to the sun and the planets. Stakes and trellises keep such awful spines upright. Without weight or anchor their scaffold limbs grow at near right angles. Buds form and open years before they should. Increase Darrow call an end to the old trees what only bear every other year in favor of the new trees what bear every harvest and so speed up their cycle and come so fast they might just one day fruit and bloom all to once. The sun touch them first. The rain always. And color them a green so rude your stomach turn to witness. They know more than trees should to sacrifice a wholeness for a strength they gain by growing rifts in their bark on purpose. Form their limbs in ways to harbor the ladybirds and pirate bugs and lacewings what eat red mites and green and woolly aphids. Surrender leaves for midges and spiders to nest in. A few apples for wasps to lay their eggs. All the good bugs. And all the great storms what mend up the coast lose their grip upon the land overnight or drift out to sea. Or fush out to naught before they even get here. Or dont even come til after harvest when all the apples already picked and gathered safe inside the dug out cellars. The first snows come lighter than blankets. Deer lay down beneath the canopies. Bears sleep in the grass.

~ Bear Kirkpatrick @ Unsaid (via)