The hills rise up in sloping curves. Their blond sides glow in golden sunlight in angles that hint at evening.

At the base of the bosom of these hillsides we harvest the apple tree. Four o clock in the afternoon and nightfall’s impending presence begins to settle in.

At the tree trunk my six year old son is afraid of snakes. He cautiously examines gopher holes while I watch the honey light halo his white hair. Cats play with each other in the dry grass of the fading garden. My father’s wife picks the last of this season’s bell peppers while my dad cracks kindling in the fire pit nearby. The sound of splitting wood rings crisp and definitive in the cooling air.

Our Corona cardboard box is filled with green apples but my son is hoping for a pomegranate from the nearby tree. The overripe fruit lays to waste at the base. Among the dusty leaves a few large bulbs hang half-rotten on the branch.

“I think that tree’s pretty much done,” my father calls from the fire where rich smoke rises in sunlight.

I continue searching for a possibility, find a large red Christmas ornament-like specimen and crack it open. Like rubies in the rough, the juicy nodules glisten and burst beneath my son’s eager fingers. He pops the shining jewels into his mouth one by one, staining scarlet on his face and hands.

“Yeah, I think that’s the last of those pomegranates,” my father says.

The oak tree drops a leaves like punctuation marks. Testaments to the fall.

“But you should take some of those apples to your mother.”

We sit, watch the cats and chew the last of the pomegranate pebbles as the sky moves from gold to orange, the scent of fire, earth and wood in the air.