The Listening Orchard

At dusk the orchard turns its leaves like small ears, rows of trees leaning toward the faintest weather. Soil breathes a low, mineral hum, and the grass keeps time with its slow, green hand.

A rusted radio mast stands among the pears, a metronome of wind and hinge. Crickets stitch their static into the air, and every branch is a tuning fork of light.

No voices arrive, yet the apples swell with signals, a quiet instruction to ripen, to hold. Above, satellites comb the dark for syllables, their paths a soft chalk on the blackboard of sky.

When dawn comes, it lifts the orchard by the roots, and the trees release their night-warm silence. In the baskets, fruit sits like cupped answers, sweet with the echo of what was never said.