Orchard

Untended boughs that bear fermented fruit

make sweeter shade where I may bide and drowse,

awaiting fell intoxicating loot

to gather up before the swarms can browse.

The feast replenishes a lost reserve,

a well inebriation unalloyed,

that filled us and surrounded us at birth,

and in our death will occupy the void.

In our youth with drunken lightness bounding

we staved off adulthood’s dull forgetting.

Panic says to heed this warning sounding,

“Find a laden tree and set to netting!”

or stroll with me down through the orchard gate,

and drink the atmosphere here while we wait.