View Spells: Ghost Orchard

The first of a series of short pieces about views, great and small, by Anne-Marie Oomen.

The day they pulled out our cherry trees, we renamed our property Ghost Orchard. We felt the change in terrain. What we didn’t expect was a change in our interior terrain–how when we change land, we are also changing a view within ourselves.
People speak of houses “with a view.” Realtors advertise sites for homes with “lake view” or sites with a “big west view.” The play, “Six Rms River View” capitalized on a city apartment view. Large or small, urban or rural, a view is what you see from a certain place in this world. If you live in a city, as I did for many years, the view may be the slice of street or alley that tells you about traffic, temperature, and your neighbor’s temperament. If you move to a more rural setting, it may consist of what you can see standing at the brow of a wide sloping meadow.
The summer we purchased property in Lake View Orchards, a former cherry farm in Leelanau County, the four hundred some tart trees on our land carried a bumper crop. As the crop ripened, we walked in the orchard at dusk, staring in awe at the laden trees. The trees had not been sprayed that year and thus the huge crop was probably a stress crop, but the fruit was relatively organic. We invited our friends to come and take as much as they could. We spent long days in the orchard, picking and playing among the shadows of the trees. I learned how the old orchard spread like fingers through the mixed hardwoods on this high plateau over Empire. Though our acreage was only a small part of the original six-hundred acre farm, I walked the entire farm, trying to figure why the orchard had been planted in this way.
Sadly, the trees had to go. The realtor had been straightforward with us. “The trees are diseased. They won’t last long now. We’ve already had complaints from neighboring farmers. You’ll need to take them out.” And that first winter, when we received the letter from the Department of Agriculture, we knew we didn’t have the skills nor the will to farm the trees. We’d also learned that the land had been supporting orchards for nearly eighty years and the soil was depleted. It was time to rest this piece of working earth.
But nothing prepared me for the death of the orchard. One chill March morning John Stanz’s Excavating crew rolled up and began removing our four-hundred trees and several thousand of our neighbors’ trees. I cringed all day as the big claw yanked these slim, leafless trees out by the roots. Though the machine was efficient and quick, nothing soothed my unease. I wondered if trees, even such domesticated ones as the tart cherry, have ghosts. Would these trees haunt us? I wondered how long before I would walk the land and not see the trees in my mind, not miss them. It was then David and I renamed our parcel Ghost Orchard–half in humor, half in reverence for the lost orchard.
Out of the reverence for the orchard, we tried not to be wasteful. We cut out many of the whole trunks to dry and use for trim in our house. However, after all the saving, there was nothing left to do but pile up the shattered branches. I could not erase my sadness as, on a cool day spackled with clouds, we watched the pyre burn.
How do we learn to see differently?
I am looking away from the rising smoke and dark crackle and across the now empty, open field. From where I stand on the corner of our section, I see a high front moving in from the lake. I am reminded that sun and rain will touch this earth in ways it hasn’t for decades. For the first time, I notice the unbroken wholeness of the field. As I walk away from the flames, I feel the wind differently and learn an answer–how the west winds, coming up the Empire bluffs and across this open area, must have kept the frost from settling. And then I see it. With the orchard gone, the view emerges. Looking north, I see over the sections of land my neighbors have purchased and all the way to a wind barrier of popple on the far side of M-72. From here, with the field newly opened, I see the topography of ravines and moraines. I feel the contours of the section, it’s shape. Turning to all the cardinal points, I see what my father meant when he talked about “the lay of the land.” The land feels wider, and more–I search for the word–more possible.
Possibility tweaks imagination, inspires me to see differently. With this raw look at its structure, the bare bones of the hillsides, I ask at last, what does the land need? How do we care for it? This new view casts a spell–that widening of thinking. That spread of imagination encourages me to understand what I see when I see a long way. Perhaps it is seeing a long way that helps me think in longer ways. A viewspell.
Though I’ve never seen their ghosts, I do miss the trees. But with this new openness I realize their absence has evoked change. With it comes responsibility. There are things to do for this space, new, more diverse trees to plant, and perhaps native grasses will replenish the soil. But the soil itself–it will rest first. And here, newly discovered, my eyes look on the abundance of a view, the luxury of a sightline that does not go on forever, but moves only as far as the nearest ridge, a lesson indeed. For it is a myth that great views let us see forever. The viewspell’s real lesson is that it does end; the view has limitations. It is that contradiction about views which we should keep in mind–the openness goes only to the edge of the visible earth. We must be careful; despite the illusion, our view is limited.