Orchards
My son is growing an orchard
of sorrow.
He has spent the day helping clients
loosen knots of pain.
On his drive home
he calls his mother.
They talk about Margo, his one-year-old,
he will bathe after dinner.
She is helping him grow
an orchard of joy.
*
Some late afternoons
my father called.
I thought work must be slow.
He talked mostly—I was afraid
of losing myself
in a stammer.
Just a call to say hello,
he’d end in a softer voice—
when I could glimpse
his nameless orchard
still bearing fruit.
.
William Palmer’s poetry has appeared in American Literary Review, Ecotone, JAMA, One Art, Salamander, and elsewhere. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights, and Humble. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 