The sun’s glare tears through the orchard’s canopy,

dapples grass and leaves.

A first budding presumption of nature

hangs fragile from a lowly bough.

Quiet expectation,

nervous anticipation,

unknowable excitement,

percolate and permeate its juvenile core.

As sun and moon play catch and kiss,

celestial chase of aeons,

presumption steadies,

and nature’s bud grows, more sure

of its place in the world.

The chase continues

but the pace slows.

Our bud, ripe and red,

no longer juvenile,

but strong and lush,

rocks and readies

for the fall of age,

and leaps.

The distant world rushes forward,

eager to greet, anxious to meet

nature’s daring presumption,

who unprepared, is battered and bruised

by the world’s callus enthusiasm,

thuds and rolls,

stops and lolls.

A last vestige of nature’s presumption

sits fragile on the leafy ground.

Peaceful degradation,

slow degeneration,

last disintegration,

permeate and percolate its senile core.

The world rots away

as sun and moon

catch and kiss and play.