Harvest

[Wildcard]

Hi Peter,
   Let me start by saying I really, really like what you've done. I'll highlight some specific lines, but for now just let me say I wish I'd wrote this! It's so wistful, but sounds so down to earth.

We returned to the orchards,
and walked among the joyous families
celebrating the harvest,
eating peanut butter sandwiches
at picnic tables near the old barn,
the last of the season’s yellowjackets these two lines grabbed me. I love 'presiding lazily' because it gives me that I-know-what-you're-talkin'-'bout feeling. I suddenly feel that the narrator is someone I can relate to because he sees it like I do. but I'm rambling . . .
presiding lazily over the feast.

A noisy tractor pulled a flatbed
overflowing with children propped on hay bales How many 'hayrides' have I been around in my life? This is an image I can definitely relate to.
to the old trees laden with ripened apples,
and the rutted fields
filled with the last of summer’s pumpkin crop. I don't care for 'crop' here. but when I tried to come up with a way to say it, I couldn't think of anything. so I can only note that it feels clunky
It was late in the season and the meadows were littered
with the odd shaped and rejected.

We did not belong;
our children grown.
We were the old ones, invisible
to the beautiful, oblivious young. maybe cut beautiful here. seems to take away from the flow and imo doesn't add anything

How I wish they were still with us.
I’d even take the middle one, the restless one,
the one that liked to run to the farthest corners,
that found the farm cats, full of fleas, 2nd billy on this. very nice work, sir
in a box behind the barn.

We knew that we should go.
Summer had vanished,
a cold winter beckoned.

At dinner that night
we barely spoke.

Overall, I think you've got a keeper there. Maybe edit a little bit of puncuation and tighten up a little bit, but other than that . . .

Thanks for sharing, sir.