From the inside looking out. Halfway to peaches. If indeed they are peaches. They could be almost anything, but they certainly look like peaches. When I was a boy we had a peach tree hidden behind a screen that defined an area for a hammock, a dining table and some benches. It was a beautiful yard. Behind another screen was the incinerator. I wonder if anyone remembers those. We used to burn the trash in a concrete incinerator, before garbage disposals and universal trash pickup. Now, of course, trash is a multitiered event with various types and styles of trash, though it’s still everything we get rid of.

Anyway, the peach tree didn’t do much most of the year. I’m not really sure why my father planted it. I don’t remember us having peaches for desert or sitting at the outdoor table savoring peaches. What I remember was that suddenly the branches became very heavy and curved toward the ground because the peaches were so large and lush that the tiny tree could barely support them. Then I remember birds flocking to eat fallen peaches. It was a kind of hiding place for me, the space behind the screen. But I remember the smell and the utter waste of things that were just what grew in the yard. We could have picked baskets of them and offered them to passersby, and maybe talked to them about what a beautiful day it was or how big the peaches were. But I honestly believe that people — at least the people then and there — preferred to buy their food at the grocery store where they knew its history, at least as far back as the boxes it arrived in.

But things have changed. Everything changes. In reality, however, everything is exactly the same. Peaches still burst forth from tiny branches, the branches bend toward the earth, and the birds are happy.