No Leaves? No Apples?

No fruit bends the orchard trees
Waiting, patient, as the cold
Stretches beggar hands to seize
What could not be picked and sold.

Burning there against the sky
One gold leaf floats down and stirs
Anger’s darkened pool lest I
Take for granted what occurs.

But though I protest in grief
All the ravages I found,
Stripped of blossom, fruit and leaf,
Rooted, the orchard stands its ground.