Cartography of the Night Orchard

The orchard is a map drawn in dew, each apple a compass, bruised with constellations. I walk the rows as if tracing old routes, the ground humming under my soles like low brass.

Somewhere, an owl opens its hinge of silence, a dark door swinging in the hedge. Sap rises in the trees like warm ink, and the air tastes of copper and rain.

I remember a voice that named each branch, how it braided the wind into something legible. Now the branches answer in rustle and breath, a grammar of leaves I can almost read.

By dawn, the map will be erased by light, the compass apples lifted into day. I leave a small stone at the gate, to mark the place where night returns to itself.