The Keeper's Orchard

The Keeper of the Orchard

No one could remember when the orchard had last borne fruit. The trees stood gnarled and gray, their branches twisted like clenched fists against the wind. Villagers passing on the road would shake their heads and mutter, A waste of soil. Children dared each other to run between the trunks, swearing the air there smelled of old rain that never fell.

Yet every morning, before the mist had lifted from the hills, an old man walked the rows with a bucket of water. His gait was slow, but each step fell with quiet purpose. He carried no pruning shears, no sacks for harvest. Only water.

He never spoke of what he did or why. The villagers assumed he was mad, or perhaps simply stubborn. His family was gone—no one could say how or when—and he lived in a small hut at the orchard’s edge, mending his own clothes and trading small carvings for bread.

Years passed. Storms tore branches from the trees; summer heat cracked their bark. Still he walked, each day, with the bucket. In winter, when the earth hardened to stone, he would stand beside the trunks, empty-handed, his palm resting on the bark as if listening for something.

Some winters, he would disappear for a day or two, returning with scratches on his arms and mud on his boots. He never said where he went, but the villagers guessed he was fetching water from the far springs.

Children grew to adults. New houses were built in the village. Roads shifted. Still the orchard stood gray and silent, and the old man walked its rows.

One spring, the old man’s steps slowed so much that it took him the whole day to reach the far side of the orchard. His bucket rattled when he set it down. On the first morning of summer, he did not rise from his bed. By evening, the hut was empty, its door swinging gently on the wind.

The orchard lay untended that week. And then the next.

It was the youngest boy in the village who noticed it first—a glint of green on one of the lowest branches. Then another. Within a month, the trees were covered in blossoms so pale they looked like moonlight caught in the air. By autumn, fruit swelled on the branches—golden, heavy, fragrant.

When the first bite was taken, it was so sweet the villagers laughed aloud without knowing why.

No one could say what had changed. Some swore it was just a good year for rain. Others whispered about the old man, wondering if he’d known this day would come.

But the trees did not answer. They only stood in their long rows, roots sunk deep into soil watered for decades by hands that had believed without seeing.

The Keeper's Orchard

The Keeper’s Orchard is a folk ballad based on the short story, The Keeper of the Orchard, telling the quiet, haunting tale of an old man who spends his life watering a barren orchard, mocked and ignored by his neighbors. Long after he is gone, the trees unexpectedly burst into blossom and yield sweet fruit, leaving the villagers laughing in wonder and debating whether the harvest was due to luck, weather, or the man’s unseen perseverance.

Lyrics

Verse 1
Down by the road where the dust blows wide
Stands a field with the trees gone dry
Branches twisted, bark all gray
No fruit in the wind, no shade in the day

And an old man walks with a bucket in hand
Tracing the rows like a map of the land
Never says a word, never asks for cheer
Just walks with the water, year by year

Chorus 1
And the rain might never know his name
The sun might burn, the frost might blame
But he keeps on walking, row by row
Pouring out water where nothing will grow
And the roots go deeper than the eye can see
In the Keeper’s Orchard by the old bent tree

Verse 2
The children laugh, the grown folk shake
They say, It’s a fool’s road, no fruit to take
But winter comes, and he still stands
With an empty pail and weathered hands

Some nights he’s gone to the springs far west
Returns with mud on his boots and vest
No one knows what he hopes to find
In the silent earth and the barren time

Chorus 2
And the rain might never know his name
The sun might burn, the frost might blame
But he keeps on walking, row by row
Pouring out water where nothing will grow
And the roots go deeper than the eye can see
In the Keeper’s Orchard by the old bent tree

Bridge
One summer morning the path grows still
The pail lies quiet by the window sill
And the orchard waits in the turning air
For the hand that came and is no longer there

Verse 3
Then a whisper of green in the branches low
Blossoms bloom where the wind won’t go
No one knows how the change began
But the trees keep time like a hidden plan

Verse 4
When the autumn sun bends low and wide
Golden fruit hangs heavy inside
The first bite sweet as a summer dream
Like the taste of a place you have never been

Chorus 3
And the rain might never know his name
The sun might burn, the frost might blame
But the trees bear fruit where the old man toiled
In the dust and heat, on the stubborn soil
And the roots still drink from the gift unseen
In the Keeper’s Orchard by the old bent tree

Final Tag
And they laughed out loud for the fruit so sweet
Not knowing why in the autumn heat
Some said rain, some said chance, some said his spirit might still be
In the Keeper’s Orchard by the old bent tree

Chorus 3 Reprise
And the rain might never know his name
The sun might burn, the frost might blame
But the trees bear fruit where the old man toiled
In the dust and heat, on the stubborn soil
And the roots still drink from the gift unseen
In the Keeper’s Orchard by the old bent tree
In the Keeper’s Orchard by the old bent tree