I signed up for gleaning, thinking any fresh fruit, even leftovers on the trees, would make a nice change from what’s on offer in the refugee apartments we’ve all been stuck in, four or five to a room, in the weeks since our East End neighborhood was bombed. But on arrival, I see nothing but bare branches on tall trees. When we get off the bus they laugh, hand us clippers, and announce this Land Girl excursion is for pruning. Most of us are from Eastern Europe. I’m the only London-born. I explain we’re to clip dead branches and twigs.

“Pruning?” Marta smiles. “Is that eating prunes?” Marta’s a large woman who packs a wicked right cross. We all pretend to laugh. She turns to Adam, the landowner. “Any parts to prune on you?” We all laugh for real.

Marta assigns me to pruning treetops using the tallest ladder. Have you ever climbed with a pair of shearing snips without impaling yourself? I notice Marta’s not climbing. She’s put herself in charge. Too bad I didn’t think of that. I’m a bit scared of being up high until I realize I can see what everyone else is doing. Sofia and Elena are near my tree, and I hear Sofia say that our leader Marta made a deal with Adam to trade a few kisses (or is it more?) for some of the apples he hid in his basement from the ration collectors. She’s supposed to divert to him a plentiful supply of twigs from the community pile, Sofia explains. “He told her he needs the twigs to keep him warm and will give even more apples to Marta if she keeps him warm later today! Then he winked at me!”

I turn, find myself facing an angry, toothy squirrel. I yell, but oops!—I’m off the ladder, on the ground. Squirrel stays in the branches chattering at me. Sofia, my only friend in the group, runs over. “You ok, Susan?”

I nod, then faint. Waking to the smell of apples, I’m on a cot in the farmer’s cellar, surrounded by his contraband. I begin to fill my pockets. Not sure how many Marta will get for our pruning session, and whatever else she’s promised Adam, but I’ll “glean” enough for Sofia and me. After a fall—apples from Adam!

Atalanta stopped to claim
golden apples—we settled
for orchard gleanings

*Author’s Note: A 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling is a painting by Evelyn Dunbar that depicts women from the Women’s Land Army pruning trees in an orchard. The painting was created in 1944 and is one of Dunbar’s final wartime artworks:

Publisher’s Note:

Evelyn Mary Dunbar (1906–1960) was a British artist, illustrator, and teacher. “She is notable for recording women’s contributions to World War II on the United Kingdom home front, particularly the work of the Women’s Land Army. She was the only woman working for the War Artists’ Advisory Committee on a full-time salaried basis” (source: Wikipedia).

A 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling (oil on canvas, 1944) is held by the Manchester Art Gallery in England:
https://collections.manchesterartgallery.org/collections/item/2ab44dc6-9396-31c8-8f51-ea7bdb98a1df/

Photograph of the painting is copyrighted © by Manchester City Galleries and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 4.0 Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.en

Joan Leotta

plays with words on page and stage. Internationally published as essayist, poet, short-story writer, and novelist, she is the author of ten published books, including two poetry chapbooks: Feathers on Stone (2022) and Languid Lusciousness with Lemon (2017). Her work was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her microfiction “Magic Slippers” received the Penny Fiction 2021 award and was anthologized in From the Depths (Issue 19, Haunted Waters Press). In early 2022, she was named a runner-up in the Frost Foundation Poetry Competition. And her poem “Magritte’s Apple Explains It All” was nominated for Best of the Net 2023 by The Ekphrastic Review.

In addition, Joan’s writings have appeared or are forthcoming in Brass Bell, Gargoyle Magazine, Impspired, MacQueen’s Quinterly, MysteryTribune, Ovunque Siamo, Pinesong, Poetry in Plain Sight, Silver Birch Press, The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, and Yellow Mama, among others.

Joan also performs folk and personal tales of food, family, and strong women on stages across the country and in UK and Europe; and she offers a one-woman show bringing Louisa May Alcott to today’s audiences. She serves on the LABRC (London Arts Based Research Council) Board and has taught writing and story performance for North Dakota and Brunswick County NC Humanities and at many conferences.

Joan Leotta, Author and Story Performer on Facebook