Black River Orchard Quotes

(Head’s up: Apples contain a lot of fiber, do not eat a shitload of them in one go. Because shitload becomes literal, not metaphorical.)

Maybe the lies you told yourself became true enough, eventually. Like a magic spell. An incantation of deception; an illusion made real.

It is not for the artist to explain his art; it exists as its own justification.

A knock on the door when you were not expecting one felt to Emily like literal violence. People who just…showed up at your house? Completely unnerving. It was an older-generation thing, she knew, to simply “pop by” unannounced. But her generation didn’t even like to take or make phone calls, thank you, much less answer the door for a total fucking stranger.

A rare day when Jersey is the side you want to be on,

(Dessert was pecan pie, always and forever, because pumpkin pie was a garbage pie you wouldn’t eat any other day of the year.)

Every apple hanging from every one of the Ruby Slipper trees hung full and dark like a bead of blood from a cut finger.

The road to old age was marked by many signposts and billboards, but none more dramatic than the one that warned you that the bridge was out ahead, and yet you kept driving toward it, because what else could you do? The road was the road and you couldn't stop now.

this was the real quicksand. Debt drew you down deeper and deeper, held you firm, so you never, ever got out no matter how hard you tried. Trickle-down economics? Yeah, right. Only thing that trickled down was that debt. Like piss on your head. And it would run down onto Calla, too. Her last year of high school started next week, and then what? College? At this rate, she’d need a full ride or have to take on predatory student loans for the rest of her life. Debt spackled upon debt, upon debt, upon debt: all mortar, no brick.

In spring the quince trees ripen in the girls' holy orchard with river waters; and grapes turn violet under the shade of luxuriant leafage and newborn shoots. But for me, Eros knows no winter sleep, and as north winds burn down from Thrace with searing lighting, Kypris mutilates my heart with black and baleful love.

The lights of the city hovered in a nimbus and again stood fractured in the black river, isinglass image, tangled broken shapes splash of lights along the bridgewalk following the elliptic and receding rows of the pole lamps across to meet them. The rhythmic arc of the wipers on the glass lulled him and he coasted out onto the bridge, into the city shrouded in rain and silence, the cars passing him slowly, their headlamps wan, watery lights in sorrowful progression.

Through a gap in the trees he could see the valley far below him where the river ran, a cauldron in the mountain's shadow where smoke and spume seethed like the old disturbance of the earth erupting once again, black mist languid in the cuts and trenches as flowing lava and the palisades of rock rising in the high-shored rim beyond the valley-and beyond the valley, circling the distant hoary cupolas now standing into morning, the sun, reaching to the slope where the old man rested, speared mist motes emblematic as snowflakes and broke them down in spangled and regimental disorder, reached the trees and banded them in light, struck weftwork in the slow uncurling ferns-the sun in its long lightfall recoined again in leafwater.

Toward an Organic Philosophy SPRING, COAST RANGE The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless, The circle of white ash widens around it. I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller. Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw; The moon has come before them, the light Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees. It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish, Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons; The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall. There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now. There were sheep here after the farm, and fire Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch, The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat And plate the surface like scales. Twenty years ago the spreading gully Toppled the big oak over onto the house. Now there is nothing left but the foundations Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge, Six lonely, ominous fenceposts; The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge Over the deep waterless creek bed; The hills are covered with wild oats Dry and white by midsummer. I walk in the random survivals of the orchard. In a patch of moonlight a mole Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein; Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean; Leo crouches under the zenith. There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees. The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible. As the wind dies down their fragrance Clusters around them like thick smoke. All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight They are silent and immaculate. SPRING, SIERRA NEVADA Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant, Like an inspiration in the brain of Archimedes. I have seen its light over the warm sea, Over the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing; And the living light in the water Shivering away from the swimming hand, Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair. Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stays late, The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone. The relationship of stone, ice and stars is systematic and enduring: Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs, The glacier contracts and turns grayer, The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow, The sun moves through space and the earth with it, The stars change places. The snow has lasted longer this year, Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake, The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered with snow, Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet, In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops, Spangled with sunset at the top, black and muscular Where it disappears again in the snow. The world is filled with hidden running water That pounds in the ears like ether; The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel; Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red, The white snow breaks at the edge of it; The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes Of someone kissed in sleep. I descend to camp, To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves, To the first violets and wild cyclamen, And cook supper in the blue twilight. All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves, In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass At the edge of the snow.

city, ending again at the palace gate. “Bounds must always be walked to dawn first,” Belvarin had explained. “It is not the direction of the circle, but the direction of the first turn that matters—it must be the shortest way to the rising sun and the elvenhome kingdoms.” Now they were nearing the city’s margin, with forest beyond gardens and orchards. A cloud of birds rose singing from the trees—tiny birds, brilliantly colored, fluttering like butterflies. They swooped nearer, flew in a spiral over his head, and returned to the trees as the procession turned toward the river. Butterflies then took over, out of the gardens and orchards, arching over the lane, then settling on his shoulders and arms as lightly as air, as if he wore a cloak of jeweled wings. As they neared the river side of the city, the butterflies lifted away, and out of the water meadows rose flying creatures as brightly colored as the birds and butterflies … glittering gauzy wings, metallic greens, golds, blues, scarlet. Kieri put up his hand and one landed there long enough for him to see it clearly. Great green eyes, a body boldly striped in black, gold, and green, with a green tail. The head cocked toward him; he could see tiny jaws move. Was it talking? He could hear nothing, but the creature looked as if it were listening. It was a long walk, and his new boots—comfortable enough that morning—were far less so by the time they reached the palace gates again. He could smell the fragrance of roast meats and bread, but next he had the ritual visit to the royal ossuary, and spoke vows into that listening silence, to those who had given him bone and blood, vows no one else would hear. He came up again to find the feast spread in the King’s Ride, long tables stretching away into the distance. On either side, the trees rose up; he could feel them, feel their roots below the cushiony sod that welcomed his feet. His place lay at the farthest table, with

Grace rolled up her sleeves and joined the group in the kitchen, where Gladys, Pablo's wife, had worked all day directing many other women who kept food pouring out the front and side door, onto a long series of folding tables, all covered in checkered paper table cloths. While some of the women prepped and cooked, others did nothing but bring food out and set it on the table- Southern food with a Mexican twist, and rivers of it: fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, chicken mole, shrimp and grits, turnip greens, field peas, fried apples, fried calabaza, bread pudding, corn pudding, fried hush puppies, fried burritos, fried okra, buttermilk biscuits, black-eyed peas, butter bean succotash, pecan pie, corn bread, and, of course, apple pie, hot and fresh with sloppy big scoops of local hand-churned ice creams. As the dinner hours approached, Carter grabbed Grace out of the kitchen, and they both joined Sarah, Carter's friend, helping Sarah's father throw up a half-steel-kettle barbecue drum on the side of the house. Mesquite and pecan hardwoods were quickly set ablaze, and Dolly and the quilting ladies descended on the barbecue with a hurricane of food that went right on to the grill, whole chickens and fresh catfish and still-kicking mountain trout alongside locally-style grass-fed burgers all slathered with homemade spicy barbecue sauce. And the Lindseys, the elderly couple who owned the fields adjoining the orchard, pulled up in their pickup and started unloading ears of corn that had been recently cut. The corn was thrown on the kettle drum, too, and in minutes massive plumes of roasting savory-sweet smoke filled the air around the house. It wafted into the orchards, toward the workers who soon began pouring out of the house.

I have always liked to take a breath of the evening, to smell the air, whether it is sweetly scented and balmy with the flowers of midsummer, pungent with the bonfires and leaf-mold of autumn, or crackling cold from frost and snow. I like to look about me at the sky above my head, whether there are moon and stars or utter blackness, and into the darkness ahead of me; I like to listen for the cries of nocturnal creatures and the moaning rise and fall of the wind, or the pattering of rain in the orchard trees, I enjoy the rush of air toward me up the hill from the flat pastures of the river valley.

He did not like killing things, but he would make exceptions for ticks—few things ate them, and he’d already danced with Lyme disease. He didn’t want whatever else the ticks wanted to give him, and he sure didn’t want to give them his blood.

Today, John Compass found a lost apple. And soon, John Compass would go to find his lost friend.

The words fled as Mr. Meza shook and Calla realized he was crying while trying very hard not to cry. Like he was compressing down to keep the tears inside. A seizure of grief. One he tried and failed to bury.

A knock on the door when you were not expecting one felt to Emily like literal violence.

He knew what peat was, and didn’t think he wanted to drink bog-dirt. Iodine, either. But when she hit on flavors like buttery, or brown sugar, he said, There, that’s it, that’s what I want. So she sold him a bottle of something called The Balvenie DoubleWood, Aged 12 Years.

history, he knew, was scar tissue.

The Judge was an abusive sonofabitch—not with his hands, no. But the things he said, the names he called his own son, the way he treated him? That was still abuse in Dan’s book. Maybe worse than a smack in the face or a spank on the ass.

We like to think of grief, and anger, and all our negative emotions, as always working one way, but sometimes they show up in ways we don’t expect, popping up like groundhogs. We think it’s kept to one place, in our hearts or in our minds, but that’s not how it works. Grief is a whole-body experience, John.

Most Quakers, we concern ourselves less with evil and sin and worry more about doing good. The best counter to bad things is to do good things. It’s why we hold people in the light. Why we find the light within, as well. That spark of God or goodness or whatever it is you believe that it is.

They say murderers want to get caught, he thought. But I’m not a murderer, he told himself. It was just an accident. Wasn’t it?

I know you thought it was odd me becoming a Quaker and all but here I think they have it right. They like things simple. So I’ll keep it simple now. You’re gone and I miss you. You were a good friend even when you weren’t and I hope the same could be said of me to you. We should’ve forgiven each other for things we said, for the way we both were. I’m holding you in the light and I wish you the best in your journey. Love you, Walt.

You’re being a judgmental bitch, she thought, but fuck it, the world was horrible and it was best to start treating it that way.

It’s fatphobic, a little bit,” Esther said, quietly. “I know it is! I said I know I’m not supposed to, Esther! Jesus Christ. People laugh at bad things because people are messy bitches, okay? At least I am aware of it and am working on myself. God.

It made her angry and sad. She felt caught between those two feelings. And it made her unsure what to do next, or if she even had any moves to make.

And now here she stood in the kitchen, with another boss at her back—this time, Meg’s mother, lording over her, sneering at her fucking vinaigrette. It made her angry and sad. She felt caught between those two feelings. And it made her unsure what to do next, or if she even had any moves to make.

Dan, and I say this as your friend, what the everloving fuck.

Nothing is permanent. We’re led to believe that when a thing stops being what it’s being, that means it failed—but all things stop being.

Kiddo, he’d said, we’re gonna make something special of this place, something that’s ours for once. Dad said that was the dream of every man. To make something of his own. Not for anybody else.

John stood in the kitchen. Though the heat was on, he felt cold, and it wasn’t just the damp clothes or the chill day. The décor was icy. White, gray, black, silver, nothing out of place but for a messy blanket on the couch. The blanket was colorful and rumpled and looked warm. Emily’s blanket, he guessed. Her mess was what marked her.

Quakers don’t necessarily believe in any kind of big supernatural evil. To them the problem of evil is a human one, a necessary part of free will. It lets us (point the rifle and pull the trigger) be as bad or as good as we so choose.

Friends are a light in dark times, Emily. We try to be brighter together so that the darkness doesn’t take us alone.

If you wanna know what’s wrong, you gotta talk to the trees.

The night had no margins. It was both endless and temporary: somehow eternal and yet, just a blip, barely an event at all.

Quakers tend to recognize nuance here, John, in that we are rarely one thing or the other. We are not all good or all bad. We’re a mix of those things, and all we can try to do is to banish the darkness inside us with the light of justice. It’s clichéd, but sometimes we need the darkness to see the light. Some understand that darkness as a natural process.

For me, the light is always the answer, and that’s vague, I know, but it’s meant to be. Because the light comes in a lot of forms.

John was her rock. John knew what to do. He felt like the thing you held on to in a storm so it didn’t sweep you away—and if he was getting swept away and she was holding on to him?

There came a moment in every kid’s life when they realized their parents were, at best, completely inadequate and unprepared, and at worst, they were narcissistic abusers who had wrapped their children in a tangled skein of trauma and anxiety like spiders securing food in a web.

So that act was evil.” “I believe it was.” “And are you evil for having committed the act?” “I—” This was one of the questions that literally kept him up some nights. A question chasing him like a pack of wolves. “I suspect I must be.” “And yet, evil men don’t usually worry about whether or not they’re evil, or what to do about evil. They just…be evil.

I am a peaceful man now, a Quaker. It’s not my job to render judgment and act upon it. But I do think there’s something righteous and necessary about chasing away shadows. And to see what has been using that darkness to hide.

What is this? You here to kill me?” “You know, I want that, I really do, but I’ve made a choice with my life and that choice is walking a path of trying my damnedest not to hurt other people. Not on purpose, at least. Not directly.

I should break you,” Meg said. “You already did. Again and again. You broke me.” Meg laughed—but it was a sad, wretched laugh. “I didn’t, though. I almost did. But here you are. Still Emily. Still defiant. Still unabashedly you. I wanted you different. I wanted you like me.” “That was always your problem, wasn’t it?

Cherie asks if John met true evil there. If he saw the face of it. He says to her, “I did, I think. True evil is real. But it’s still a human evil. Even if it comes from outside of us, I think at the end of the day, it only wins when we let it in.

We don't know what ripples we make when we commit acts in this world. Clap your hands here, and earthquake happens there

Friends are a light in dark times, Emily. We try to be brighter together so that the darkness doesn't take us alone.

My father is a soldier of everyday life who only lived to protect his wives and his children from hunger . Day after day, in the river of time that is life , my father filled our bellies with the fruit from his fields and his orchards. My father, the old man , made us his family, grow stronger and more beautiful just like the plants he fed us. He was a grower of trees and fruits, he was a grower of children. We grew tall and strong like the seeds he planted in the loamy soils of his fields .

the violence that broke out of him sometimes wasn’t really his at all, but something that had been put in him long ago, something that all the training and all the battles and all that killing had made stronger. Meaner, too. Government saw that violence inside him and lured it into the open, trapped it, filed its teeth to points, gave ’em a shine, too. Made it so that the violence took him over. Painted his hands with blood. His eyes also.

Nice guys are overrated. Nice girls, too. They’re never as nice as they pretend to be.” Joanie snorted. “You’re not wrong about that. Gimme someone who’s a little bit of a dick. Not a total dick. But enough to be confident.

But then winter did what winter did: It grew darker, colder, crueler. In this case, wetter, too. Rain and ice more than snow. The wind was often biting. The skies, gray as a river-soaked corpse.

Winter was a time of long shadows gathering, like vultures shuffling together on the long branch of a leafless tree. Waiting for their moment.

Emily took a good long look at John. The kids who came to the shelter she worked at in Philly had put on all this armor, all of it not just to protect them, but to hide what they were feeling. (Which, she supposed, was itself a kind of protection.)

Life carried forward. Decay and rejuvenation. Pain and grace locked in a whirling dance, the blur of red and green. Beauty and horror. Fuck around, find out. Everything cut down to nothing. But nothing becomes everything, too, on a long enough timeline, because that’s the way of things.