I flinch hearing Mending Wall read aloud:

             “He is all pine and I am apple orchard.”

Frost knew

there is a place where the autumn is darker,

acres of needled conifers a dark green that deepens before it rains.

             Pine tree branches can bear heavy snowfall without breaking.

What I know: it is impossible for me to tread in that place without

            knowing that there is a reason land was what God promised to Moses–

                       that in December I will always think of curses–

                       that out of every window I will always see the dark green–

                       that the still-alive, undecorated Christmas trees are my inheritance–

                       that the wall between the all-pine place and the apple orchard did not muffle my mother’s fall–

In winter there, boots are louder in snow than one would expect,

and I know I will become what I least understand.