Pleasant View

(In honor of Earth Day, April 22, 2024)

My grandpa’s cherries were red and sour; perfect for pies!

This place was different then.

There were few fences or walls to keep animals out

No division among foothills and pastures

Or houses scantly spread across the sprawl of green

Or apple and peach trees,

Black and white bovines,

Dogs and hawks.

As a girl, my mother went out riding; a horse on the street belonged here. She had space to gallop among the scrub oak in the mountain air.

Grandpa loved his orchard.

It was the only place he felt at home, felt good, felt right.

But it wasn’t making money, so he sold it.

He had to.

Giving it up was the practical thing to do,

No matter how much it broke his heart.

I never met my grandpa.

He died before I was born.

On his deathbed, my mother held his mighty farmer’s hand until finally his large doe eyes closed. His skin a cirrhotic yellow.

Yes, it is true

That we are eternal

And there is no time

And all that “is” becomes, transforms,

Into something else.

It is also true that some things end.

And when they end,

It is forever.

Ira Joan Macner

Ogden Canyon

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