The Windfall

The Windfall - words and music David Philip Ireland

(musical setting by Mikey Cooling)

I came across an orchard with bloodstains on the ground 

Fallen seed of bruised and bloody red 

Sunlight glinting there upon the gall worms and the drones 

Feasting on the remnants of the windfall

I searched me for some greening shade - a willow parasol 

A sheltered sun-dark dome of mornings drop 

Each careless step a memoir, a cider memory 

Intoxicating revels of the windfall

And how they fade 

And how they wither 

How they leather up 

And pass into the earth 

Offering life through death, season by season 

The cruelest culling harvest of the windfall 

In the gardens of a house brought to life after the war 

I was minded of the souls among the dew 

Fields of far off summer mornings held them in their arms 

The ruddy rising suns of the windfall 

And the ghosts drift idly high over the orchard now 

They hover over villages and towns 

Each one a soul, each one a son, 

A snapshot heart-held close, as the teardrops trickle down 

And how they fade 

And how they wither 

Their cries to home were soundless in the dawn 

And when the broken ones returned 

No lessons had been learned 

There is nothing to be learned from the windfall