In My Brother's Orchard

My prize find of the afternoon: a pheasant's nest at the base of an apple tree, the brooding hen taking startled flight to my quiet footsteps on rippling grass, a flurry of feathers drifting from the air she left above her clutch of eggs. And one egg, in her rush, shifted away from the warm leaf-nest, and I lifted it back into the center or its life.

And then away, away, into the wind and the sharp chemical air, the late afternoon sun casting its slant across my steps.