Page One
APPLE TIME IN AMISH COUNTRY
It’s four in the morning in Amish country
when the milkman drives his truck home
past white mists on harvest fields.
The Amish fathers are in the barns at five
nudging cows and lifting buckets of warm milk.
When the mothers pick the apples in the afternoon orchards,
the Amish children are cozied in black buggies,
and carried home from school by their fathers.
Horse hooves on asphalt.
You Amish sing, “Thee I love more than the buds on the May apple tree.
I love thee.”
On this October day the milk truck driver takes a detour
to the wood schoolhouse and shoots dead five of your young girls
and himself.
You give your harvest from your apple baskets,
grain scythe and horsedrawn plow
to the grieving milkman’s widow.
May the silence of early snow bring soft consolation.
May your deep stores provide until the meadow blooms.