from · the southwest · autumn · beaufort 4

the apple wind

the apple wind comes in october, low across the orchard, the way a hand comes low across a long table to clear it. it is a warm wind under cold skies. it carries the sweet stink of fallen orchard fruit, oak smoke from a chimney that is not ours, and, far off, the smell of a road being mended.

it shakes the apple tree once and twice and again. the third shake is the one that fills the grass. by the next morning, every apple that was going to fall has fallen, and the tree is reconciled to its lighter weight. small regrets do their corresponding work indoors: a letter unsent falls behind the desk; a ribbon, found in a drawer, is held.

indoors it sounds like the slow tearing of a paper bag. west-facing doors rattle in their frames at intervals of about forty minutes. the apple wind is held to be the wind under which a year is, quietly, accepted.

field note · ix · on the morning after, the kitchen smelled of an orchard we have not kept since the children were small.

garden · orient · january · orchard · atmospheres