Cider

In wandering around the orchard during a brief calm between storms, take note of the fruit that has been shaken loose. Doesn’t the rotten sludge of our spoiled harvest strike you with a feeling of déjà vu?

These trees all grow the same, and it would be silly to expect anything different, and yet last year as we starved through another winter the mood never allowed for consideration that perhaps our garden has failed us, that perhaps something else would be worth growing, or even that we would do better to look in the woods to see what could feed us there.

“We’ve always been pomologists!” “We just need to grow more trees.” “The woods isn’t safe for all of us.” “Next year we will harvest before the storms.”.

I’m hardly placated by the assurance of an improved orchard. The gaunt faces and overflowing chamber pots of the calm years suggest that our diet is still lacking in everything vital, but most seem content with this semi-starvation. I am not.

Will you come into the woods?