Poem for Sunday and Yom Kippur

Peach Farm
By Dean Young

I'm thinking it's time to go back
to the peach farm or rather
the peach farm seems to be wanting me back
even though the work of picking, sorting,
the sticky perils and sudden swarms are done.
Okay, full disclosure, I've never
been on a peach farm, just glimpsed
from a car squat trees I assumed
were peach and knew a couple in school
who went off one summer, so they said,
to work on a peach farm. She was pregnant,
he didn't have much intention, canvases
of crushed lightbulbs and screws in paste.
He'd gotten fired from the lunch counter
for putting too much meat
on the sandwiches of his friends
then ended up in Macy's in New York
selling caviar and she went home
I think to Scranton, two more versions
of never hearing from someone again.
I'd like to say the most important fruits
are within but that's the very sort of bullshit
one goes to the peach farm to avoid,
not just flight from quadratic equations,
waiting for the plumber,
finding out your insurance won't pay.
Everyone wants out of the spider's stomach.
Everyone wants to be part of some harvest
and stop coughing to death and cursing
at nothing and waking up nowhere near
an orchard. Look at these baskets,
bashed about, nearly ruined with good employ.
Often, after you've spent a day on a ladder,
you dream of angels, the one with the trumpet
and free subscriptions to the New Yorker
or the archer, the oink angel, angel
of ten dollar bills found in the dryer
or the one who welcomes you in work gloves
and says if you're caught eating a single peach,
even windfall, you'll be executed.
Then laughs. It's okay, kiddo,
long as you're here, you're one of us.

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Saturday had my very favorite sort of weather, in the mid 60s during the day and low 50s in the evening, with the kind of afternoon sun that only appears in early autumn. Adam did not have official cross country practice because of Yom Kippur but wanted to go running with friends to prepare for Monday's meet, so while he did that, the rest of us went to Homestead Farm to pick apples. There were many other people, including lots of kids who were happily feeding the goats and calf, and we bought locally harvested honey as well as the Fuji and Empire apples we picked.

Though we did not fast for Yom Kippur -- I haven't since I was pregnant with older son, and now that I get migraines triggered by very low blood sugar, am unlikely to do so again -- we went to "break the fast" with the friends of my parents we have visited for the past many years, including several of the children and grandchildren I have known all of my life and my kids have known all of theirs. The food was delicious and it was great to see everyone. Here are a few photos, including my family together and Adam in a bow tie that coincidentally matches Oliver's pants:













In sports news, Maryland beat UConn, which is delightful, but the Orioles and Nationals both continued their quests not to make the playoffs by losing games they should have won. We just watched Now You See It with the kids because we thought they would like it and they did; now we have Wisconsin playing Arizona State on in the background while Adam and his father work on cookies to bring to the cross country team spaghetti dinner on Sunday night!