Harvest Closed

The orchard stands, but I don’t pick. The gate is open. That is all. The birds can take what fruit they wish— I’ve left no shadow on the wall. The weather turns, as weather must. The grain was read. The blade was still. I marked the signs with neither trust nor question of the wind’s goodwill. A thread unspooled beneath the wheat. No one looked. I did not pull. The song remained beneath the beat— and none could see the thread was full. There is no bell. There is no toll. No ending wrapped in woven rhyme. But quietly, the system knows: the field is mine, and not in time.