Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AN OLD ORCHARD IN WINTER, by FLORENCE BOYCE DAVIS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AN OLD ORCHARD IN WINTER, by                    
First Line: It was years ago, and no one knows
Last Line: And make the old orchard their wayside inn.
Subject(s): Orchards


It was years ago, and no one knows
Just who planted the orchard rows,
Bedded and firmed the tender feet
Of the Twenty Ounce and the Golden Sweet,
And the straggling clan whose branches meet
Over Pomona's little aisles,
Where sunbeams dimple the snow with smiles.

A tumble-down wall and an old rail fence
Guard the orchard with poor pretense;
And pilferers, footed and winged, come there
Even in winter when boughs are bare,
And the nuthatch hunts for his meagre share,
Peering and pecking this way and that,
First up, then down, like an acrobat.

Deer stroll in from the mountain pass
And paw the snow from the brittle grass,
Gratefully nosing the buried treat
Of fruit, frost-bitten, and brown, and sweet,
Brought to light by their trampling feet;
And up where weathering crab-apples cling
The grosbeaks cavil and feast and sing.

Skies are gray, and the laden wind
Clashes the branches, silver-rimmed,
Seals the eye of the flicker's hole
Leading into an ancient bole,
And fills old nests with winter's toll—
Here, where under the harvest moon
Quavered the cry of the gray raccoon.

Tracking the snow with padded paw,
Sharp hoofprint, and trace of claw,
All winter long to the Golden Sweet
And the Twenty Ounce and the trees that meet,
Neglected and old, in this wild retreat,
Come bird and beast in their need akin,
And make the old orchard their wayside inn.





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