Still Here
by Charles W. Pratt
Excerpted from a WMUR story about Apple Annies, 9/29/2008
The visitor from Ireland said: the windless quiet.
Precisely the phrase I’d turned in my head all day.
Still here at dawn. The sun lips the orchard edge
And splashes new light through the open door of our bedroom.
The apple trees pose like dancers in a photograph.
Apples bead their branches like water that falls
And falls but the falls remain. The suspense of leaves!
Still here at noon. The dog sleeps under the car.
Still here at dusk. Closing the chicken coop
I look to the plum-dark sky as a great blue heron
Points the long ship of its body down toward the valley
And the silent river. Home. Still here when a friend
Calls to tell us a child at last has been born,
When a friend calls to tell us another friend has died.
