Michael Hettich is one of our best and most necessary poets because his dreamlike stories remind us how little we truly see and how often we sleep through the day's deep revelations. This collection--so tightly choreographed and flawlessly written--is like a long poem that shines brighter with each turn of the page. By book's end, one is desirous to know more clearly those mysteries of the inner vision, and to bring a keener awareness to the fraught and fragile natural world that is ours to inhabit, nourish, and preserve. To Start an Orchard is a call to arms, demanding consciousness, responsibility, and love. --Richard Jones