To see the orchard stand undressed and cold,
shivering before the blue mountain, trunks dark
with winter fall, is to believe the old

tales of the winter gods. The darkened bark,
records the score of frosts since All Saint’s Day,
but underneath the Christian year a stark

reality still lurks: the gods, the fay,
those cosmic psychos, that unstable lot,
those wisps of tricky light beside the way.

A door between the trees opens but not
because a house is there; it’s not that kind
of door. Out come the winter gods you thought

were dead. Their slow parade begins to wind
between the darkened trunks. Now clutch your book
of prayers, thumb through the incensed pages, find

that psalm that burned you warm until you shook
the winter from your bones before. Take care
no glance falls on the wintered faces. Look

beyond the barren trunks. The frigid air
is split by stone and glass where faith gave birth
once to a hunkered chapel in the bare

field. Walk in. Look up. Wonder for all you’re worth
to see there, high above, the humble stones of earth.

Vera Jefferson, Pear Orchard in the Moonlight, oil on canvas, 2025. Artwork by Vera Jefferson. Used by permission of Markies Antiques Ltd, markiesantiques.co.uk.