Phoenix and blossom on a upper back

The fire came up the valley on Tuesday, though not the kind the council warned us about. It was the bird that came down out of the smoke over the lower terraces, wings wider than the barn door, and it settled on the old quince tree like it had been sent for. Mrs Okafor from the cider house swears she saw blossom falling off it, though it's the last week of August and there is no blossom left on anything. I've stopped arguing with her about it.

I went out with the hose and the good ladder, because that is what you do when a thing is burning in your orchard. But it wasn't burning. Its feathers were grey and gold like ash that had decided to be beautiful, and where its tail trailed through the windfalls the apples were splitting open and giving off a smell like warm honey. The oval marks down its tail looked back at me. I know how that sounds. I counted twelve of them before I made myself stop.

When I came back with the ladder the bird had gone, and in its place there were blossoms pressed into the bark of every tree in rows, pale as milk, the cream of them shaded at the edges with the grey of the bird's wing. The pickers won't go under the quince now. They say it's still warm.

I am not asking you to come home. I am asking you to bring the good secateurs when you do. The new trees need pruning, and I have a feeling the bird will want its share.

Yours in the orchard, Ida