Fresh news
in the apple press –
the cold liquors of autumn.

The orchard is busting
with luscious, wide-hipped pears,
plump Buddha-plums
chilled and beaded blue,
apples heavy on the trees,
ruddy and swollen
on their pendulous boughs.

Ladders carry us
up the chakras
to the sweet summit,
rungs poking
into red delicious sunrise.
The good Eden is back,
and every fruit wholesome.

The shed blood of Eve
and a million years of toil
across the furrowed brow
of earth
revivify the garden
of royal pear,
sacred olive and ritual grape.

Angels leave
the trees unguarded,
the trellises run purple,
the grass is deep in apples
and the cidery smell of redemption.

Pride shed
like an outgrown skin,
we take sabbatical in Paradise,
naked as green, untasted fruit.