ORCHARD
Poem by LA Pocock
Illustration by Olga Kawaci ́nskaHere we pile
all the cold earth
at the base of the sapling.
Small black mounds, like baby graves,
neat, tidy,
palmed down fi rm
with our warm hands.
The trembling green stalks
between our fi ngers,
our hunched shoulders working in rhythm
as we press,
press hard on the dark soil.
...and we repeat the thing.
Another seedling
slender, shaking, thirsting,
into the cold ground.
And again,
and again, and hope, and again...
and hope that they will survive,
survive like the smallest suspicion of a breath
of a wish
in a whisper.
Exhausted you stand,
arms up-stretched, to overlook the land.
Tiny trees in rows,
receding to the distance,
each one as tall,
as another unborn child.