I know an orchard where four hundred fruit trees branch
And every spring send down an avalanche
Of snow white blossoms burying the ranch
Beneath six feet of blooms
I hurry there and help to dig them out
To find their bodies, back and forth we shout
And there they are, content and strewn about
Like birds in flowery tombs
I often wonder if they notice that
Ten tons of flowers fill their habitat
Because, as usual, they work and chat
Inside adjoining rooms
And when late summer, early fall becomes
An avalanche, this time of sugarplums
And apples, pears, upon the rooftop drums
And we need power brooms
To sweep away the hills, the peaks, the butte
The mountaintop of ever ripening fruit
To find the ranch hands, cheerful, resolute
Intact as rare perfumes.