from a treetop

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #84, "from a treetop"

Just west of the well was the small orchard.  The limbs of the old peach trees were low enough for the girl child to climb.  Once sitting on the lowest limb there was usually one or two scrapes on her legs.  She did not care as she was the family's tom boy. These scrapes were badges of honor, sort of.

The crooks of the limbs made a perfect ladder to the top.  Once there she sat and surveyed the fields and farm buildings.  Chickens scratched in the soil below the tree.  Her yellow dog would sit looking up to her.  Finally, he would give up and do the circle turn before plopping in the tree's shade.

Late summer her climb would be rewarded with ripe fruit.  Not big fruit but so very sweet and juicy.  So much juice that it ran down her hands and arms as she ate fuzzy peels and all.  The wrinkled pits would be tossed below sometimes startling the chickens. Sometimes aimed at the chickens.  She would sit there in her treetop kingdom listening to the sounds of the hot summer.

from a treetop
emptiness dropped down
in a cicada shell                   (Basho)

released from the crusty jail

cicada joy resounds             (Janice Adcock)

Thanks to Chèvrefeuille for daily prompts on 

CARPE DIEM HAIKU KAI