A woman owns an orchard where the work has been skipped for at least two years, and she makes herself go out and tend it. She lurches from an old thrift-store chair, leaves her porch and its dusty, webbed tools, and works through apple, quince, pear, plum, and cherry trees, clipping vines, weeds, watersprouts, and suckers. The labor is physical: she strips off hat, jacket, shirt, and gloves as the day warms, and her skin meets thorns and rough bark. She had thought of hiring neighbor kids, but habit keeps her at it, plus a belief that apples need full sun and ripen well only with care. The mood is quiet, earthy, and stubborn rather than triumphant. The final line says it plainly: doing a thing yourself is how you see it through.
See It Through — Summary
One should not have an orchard and Not care for it; so she tries, Even lurches from the depths of a chair She's found at some thrift, pre-softened; from Her house, warm or cool as she might wish,
Out into too much sun or too much rain; from Under the kind roof of a porch she'd built, Leaving tool after tool there to gather Dust and webs, marks of a new will to Neglect. Beyond the weed-bent fence, an
Orchard of sorts awaits her care, each Task having skipped two years at least. Hands grasp lopper and saw. She visits Apple, quince, pear, plum, cherry, clipping Vines, tall weeds, watersprouts, suckers;
Even designates branches for her stove. As the forenoon warms, she strips off Now her hat, next jacket, shirt and gloves, Old skin offered to thorns, thistles, Rough bark. Really she'd meant to hire it done,
Children of neighbors being short on cash. Habit, she could call it. Habit, and the way Apples come best that see right sun, Ripe enough to pay her for some pains. Do a thing yourself to see it through.