A few weeks ago my friend Karen Driscoll invited me to come to her house to pick peaches. It was a little bit of heaven, as you can see from this poem I wrote when I got home.

Picking Peaches
Come and pick peaches, she emailed.
Leave the land of email and come to the orchard of peach and apple trees.
Women in long sleeves, long pants.
You will come to a timeless place of women picking peaches.
Start with hugs, then walk to a tree.
You might be distracted at times by two small birds with yellow breasts,
by light white clouds in a New Mexico blue sky.
You will see a tree so covered with deep scarlet-skin peaches you won’t believe they aren’t yet ready to be picked.
You will hear words of ripe, sweet, crunchy, smooth, juicy,
some talk of canning, freezing or pies.
Come to pick full boxes of peaches to take home
to ripen, to cook, to eat.
Come to a morning of heaven.
Come.
Thank you.