The shutters are rusted open on the north kitchen window ivy has grown over the fastenings the casements are hooked open in the stone frame high above the river looking out across the tops of plum trees tangled on their steep ***** branches furred with green moss gray lichens the plums falling through them and beyond them the ancient walnut trees standing each alone on its own shadow in the plowed red field full of amber September light after so long unattended dead boughs still hold places of old seasons high out of the leaves under which in the still day the first walnuts from this last summer are starting to fall beyond the bare limbs the river looks motionless like the far clouds that were not there before and will not be there again