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The Old Trees on the Hill

When you were living

and it was later than we knew

there was an old orchard

far up on the hill behind the house

dark apple trees wrapped in moss

standing deep in thorn bushes and wild grape

cobwebs breathing between the branches

memory lingering in silence

the spring earth fragrant with other seasons

crows conferred in those boughs and sailed on

chickadees talked of the place as their own

there were still kinglets and bluebirds

and the nuthatch following the folded bark

the churr of one wren a dark shooting star

with all that each of them knew then

but whoever had planted those trees

straightening now and again over the spade

to stand looking out across the curled

gleaming valley to the far grey ridges

one autumn after the leaves had fallen

while the morning frost still slept in the hollows

had been buried somewhere far from there

and those who had known him and his family

were completely forgotten you told me

and you said you had never been up there

though it was a place where you

loved to watch the daylight changing

and we looked up and watched the daylight there

W. S. Merwin