the cherry orchard

The idea appeals. And I understand Chekov's tugged heart when his cherry orchard was chopped down. For it hurts to see a tree severed, its pale interior revealed.

But for a week now I have been dealing with cherries. Eating them by the gutful, hands like I've done an organ transplant, droplets on all my clothes and a smeared face. Cherry jam, cherry vodka, cherry grappa. They brings me bowls which I set on the outside table as the sunlight thins, after piano practice or I couldn't bear to watch my hands on the keys.

And I sit there pitting cherries, chucking the flesh into the pot, the stones into a bowl, looking at the corn growing in the field at the front, looking at my own trees inching upward, trying to think in a soothing way about the beauty of what I am doing when in truth I am wondering if anybody has ever invented a cherry-pitting machine, how much would it cost? could I model one myself?

Then the breeze hushes my thoughts and I think more roundly.