The Cherry Picker

Digital Art made with love by Richard Nadler, 1/1 edition, Munich, Germany, 10/22

I was barely tall enough to heave the towering ladder up careful not to bruise the bark or break a branch wrestling the three-legged beast in a ponderous waddle to the next abundance.

Then a heady climb to clasp and pluck each clutch of stems fondling fat globules soft rubies gently dropped into my bulging bucket.

Sweating in the summer sun I was too young to know that the ladder rungs reached all the way to heaven and the crimson trickle from my lips was God’s own blood.