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.
