The ladder in the pear tree

An original literary non-fiction-style account of helping pick pears in a small orchard.

The ladder disappeared into the tree before I understood where it ended. Its lower feet stood in the grass; above them, pale rungs divided leaves and patches of sky. My neighbour climbed with an empty picking bag folded against her chest. From below, she seemed to enter a room whose walls kept moving.

A pear came into view in her hand. She held it for a moment, turned it and lowered it into the bag. The movement was smaller than I had expected. I had imagined fruit being seized from branches, a brisk raid on the tree's possessions. Instead, her hands appeared to ask a series of quiet questions and accept only some of the answers.

I carried the filled bag to a wooden crate. The pears settled against one another with a low, padded sound. Several had brown flecks near the stalk. They looked less uniform than the fruit in the shop and much less interested in presenting a single shade of green. One lay slightly apart, broad at the base and narrow enough at the neck to resemble a small uncertain bottle.

Above me, the leaves parted and closed around a sleeve. My neighbour called for another bag. The ladder remained where it was, a steady pale line through all that shifting green. When she came down, the bag on her chest was folded flat again. The crate beside my shoes had become unexpectedly heavy.

How does the writer use language to present the picking and the relationship between the worker and the tree?