Signals in the Orchard

The radio dish in the field turns its slow face, a pale ear listening to the grass breathe. Between the rows of apple trees, dew collects like small names I forgot to keep.

A wind moves through the orchard with a soft wrenching, loose fruit thudding into the dark. Crickets test their instruments, and the stars blink in and out like distant lighthouses.

I set my hand against a trunk, feeling the sap climb in its quiet spiral. Above, the milky river keeps its oldest weather, trailing the scent of iron and frost.

Somewhere a signal crosses our longitude, a thread of light under the soil of night. It does not mean or ask, it simply is, and for a moment, so am I.