It's just an orchard.

It's just an orchard, peaches ripen every year. Commuting each weekday, the orchard seems to flash by. Bare limbs in winter, sometimes nonexistent as I fumble with the radio, adjust the heater, perhaps sneak a look at my cell phone.

I stop each summer to pick a bucket. Wearing protective long sleeves and looking for or perhaps hoping to see a snake, I wander deep. Picking up a soft ripe peach from the ground to bite. Wiping the juices running down my chin, I stand and stare at the limbs drooping from the weight of the with fruit. A small cloud of gnats pass between trees.

I remember as a teenager working at the packing shed, the smell of fresh peaches. I would watch the men who toiled in the fields at the end of the day. Strangely envious even though the moments I spent picking, no matter how careful, I would rush home to shower off the peach fuzz.

Every spring the field dances from the road. Ribbons of pink hued trees in contrast to the green grass lay across the fields. I always plan to stop and take pictures. This year I pull my car to the side of the highway, half the trees are just stumps. A sketchy orchard remains for a final harvest. 

Some of the stumps have a branch covered with the familiar pink blooms with a heart of deep red.