104 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
wild vagrants of the sky, and the birthday of 
the apple trees which marshaled the landscape 
we behold like white clouds billowing. He had 
rocked every cradle of every tree in this wide 
wandering land of foamy loveliness. I could 
all but hear the lullabies he sang them with his 
man’s sturdy voice hushed till it crooned like an 
autumn wind. 
The orchard was now untouched of the plow, 
paved with bluegrass. Not a weed intruded on 
the scene, only flashing green of grass, than which 
the high God has made no growing thing more 
witchery-crowded. To walk on floor of green 
with amethyst skies sweet above, Heigh O the 
wind and the rain! Along the green paths of 
apple bloom, as if they had fallen from the wet 
hand of a rainy wind, lay apple branches dead, 
and wistful to be given one last laughter of an 
apple tree fire. My fingers itched to gather 
the dead scattered branches, for whether it be 
sea-soaked driftwood of ships of yesterday or 
hickory wood or pine knots and branches high 
up in the mountains, I am of the mood to believe 
that none of them surpass apple trees for poetry 
of flame. Hickory sparkles swim up the sky 
with crackling fairy salutations as fired from 
some fairy headland, minute yet delicious salvos 
of a fleet sailing out not to return, whereas apple 
trunks and boughs emit their sparkles without 
a syllable of voice, just aerial flamboyancy, the 
beading of apple blooming and apple juice with 
