Deadheading

When I brought you home, the apples still lay in bud and you were all crowned in bloom, a mat of color and life—purple and white and yellow so dense, I couldn’t see their bottom. You spoke bright summer over me then, fragrant and fertile, an easy, intimate beauty.

When I looked today, while apples, fully ripe, lay browning beneath the trees, half your blooms had withered and turned brown, shriveled without permission, exposing leaf and stem. I pulled off the withered flowers, the brown and dead, and there, just underneath, lay new buds, tight and closed. Sparser than the first, but firm. Small, but reaching for light.

I cleared the way for them, recalling the beauty of their forbears, putting to rest what was spent letting life have its way. Making room for promise.