Journey Through Art In the Orchard

Art In the Orchard is a sculpture trail through an orchard in Easthampton, MA. This year is their fourth exhibition. I’ve always loved experiencing their carefully selected pieces against the backdrop of trees, mountains, and sky. (My poem Garden Man is a response to the second AiO.) This year, I’ve visited twice and the first time I just happened to view the sculptures in reverse order. Three in particular really affected me, and that journey is the heart of the poem below.

If you’re in or near Easthampton this fall, definitely pay a visit to Park Hill Orchard for some fresh apples and beautiful, affecting art.

Easthampton Journey

Art in the Orchard, 2019

The trees in the orchard bear mirrored fruit.

Someone has thrown a fishing net over rotting logs,

shiny rainbows a mysterious catch.

The breeze that makes beautiful things billow 

also stirs strips and sheets of plastic,

sparking hopelessness. The breeze touches all of us

whether sad, sodden, or sinful. Today is sunny and quiet 

in this place of graves and growth.

While someone mourns her lost home

someone else hatches quilted birds from felted eggs.

The worst is the memorial to gun violence,

14,730 people depicted by 14,730 metal washers,

their could-have-been lives shrouding a globe,

rusting in the weather like memory.

Climb upward and you’ll find a pair of tiny lovers

escaping on the back of a sparrow.

Climb higher and you’ll see nothing but a green gesture, 

arm-like shape flung toward the sky.

It’s more absence than substance, like the space

desperate lovers and murdered children leave behind.

I can’t make sense of anything. Everything is curved

but some things are jagged. Everything is jagged

but a serene, painted face moves among them. 

Gun Violence Project

Bird Bird

Lookout

Art referenced, in order:

• Tree of Life - Ted Hinman
• Abundance - Pamela Matsuda-Dunn
• The Three (dis)Graces - Elizabeth Stone & Eva Fierst
• Home - Lynne Yamamoto
• La Cage aux Fowl - The Fiberistas
• Gun Violence Project - Michael Poole
• Bird Bird - Tim de Christopher
• Lookout - Walter Early

Read about them and see pictures: http://www.parkhillorchard.com/media/AIO/2019/artintheorchard-program-2019.pdf