Peaches

There’s nothing like a fresh peach, plucked from a laden tree, warm from the sun and so juicy we have to stand at a convoluted angle in order to drip only down our chins and not our shirts. It’s an old-time form of companionship, this standing around a tree, slurping the golden flesh of its reproductive cycle. And in such abundance! There were maybe a hundred peaches on the first tree, but at least five times that many on the second—globules of goodness clustered tightly around each limb for foot after foot, completely obscuring any sight of the bark. One branch even broke under the load, but its fruit was even too much for the bugs and it continued to ripen on the ground. I must have picked ten or fifteen pounds last Monday. Still the tree showed no sign of thinning out. There must be many pies in future, methinks, and alas that I’m not there to eat my fill. But I had a handful in my carry-on…and ate them somewhere high above the Rockies.