--- title: ‘An Orchard at the Bottom of a Hill’ By Maurice Manning description: Why don’t you try just being quiet? If you can find some silence, maybe you can listen to it. canonical: https://time.com/5349535/an-orchard-at-the-bottom-of-a-hill/ author: Maurice Manning article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-26T11:05:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:58:09.193Z article:section: Ideas og:title: ‘An Orchard at the Bottom of a Hill’ By Maurice Manning og:description: Previously unpublished work from Southern poets og:url: https://time.com/5349535/an-orchard-at-the-bottom-of-a-hill/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt734ed500ef690efe/698936547cdbac286ed5d815/apple-orchard-north-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2405 og:image:height: 1353 og:image:alt: apple-orchard-north-carolina og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: ‘An Orchard at the Bottom of a Hill’ By Maurice Manning twitter:description: Previously unpublished work from Southern poets twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt734ed500ef690efe/698936547cdbac286ed5d815/apple-orchard-north-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # An Orchard at the Bottom of a Hill > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Maurice Manning](https://time.com/author/maurice-manning/) ## Maurice Manning Jul 26, 2018 11:05 AM UTC  Apple orchard at sunrise. Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina. Apple orchard at sunrise. Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina. Jim McKinley—Getty Images by [Maurice Manning](https://time.com/author/maurice-manning/) ## Maurice Manning Jul 26, 2018 11:05 AM UTC Why don’t you try just being quiet? If you can find some silence, maybe you can listen to it. How it works is interesting. I really can’t explain it, but you know it when it’s happening. You realize you’re marveling at apple blossoms and how they’re clustered on the tree and you see the bees meticulously attending every blossom there, and you think the tree is kind of sighing. Such careful beauty in the making. And then you think, it’s really quiet, but I am not alone in this world. That’s how you know it’s happening, there’s something solemn and wonderful in the quiet, a slow and steady ease. Whether the tree is actually sighing is beside the point. It’s better to wonder, you needn’t be precise with quiet, it just becomes another thing. It isn’t a science, it’s an art, like love, or a dog who’s pretty good, asleep in the grass beneath the tree. _Manning, a Kentucky native, is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and author, most recently, of One Man’s Dark_ _This story is part of TIME’s August 6 special issue on the American South. 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