I was sixteen when the machines came. The letters “C-A-T” screamed at me from across the street As the harsh yellow tore at the roots of the Cherry trees across the street. Of course the orchard had never been mine, I had not planted the seeds and curated the Beautiful blooms through their short lives, Picked the cherries off the trees myself. But what about all the photoshoots I’d done Among the gorgeous white blooms, All the times my friend had walked through The rows of trees to get to my house and Left paint splatters of cherries across the kitchen floor, All the sunsets I’d seen through the leaves That made me nostalgic for things I had never experienced? What if I’m growing up and moving out And can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that These plants that have smiled at me from my Window for over a decade have returned To the Earth? What if these days the Weeks are crying when they should be glowing and The absence of trees is simply the target of One of those odd tricks that sorrow shoots out of the mind That remind me that change is the only thing that’s Permanent? I wish that the emptiness of the field could be replaced by Happy little white blooms But instead the CAT machines screech and moan And all I can feel is The ache of old nostalgia and the Peculiar nostalgia of the unknown.
a reworking of "I can now see beyond the cherry orchard" from almost two years ago! Time flies when you're having fun, right? :)