Saturday, January 25, 2014

The Pear Tree (an impression)

It has long outgrown its productive height. Tall it stands in the darkness. Lit only by the reflected light of the house's spotlights shinning up on it from the millions of delicate flakes blanketing everything, coloring the ground white. Shaped by years longer then my own, twisting and turning through space and time, branches reaching out to the sky and then turning inward again, but then once again reaching out to the sun, always straining upward to find the light. Now it is resting, slumbering dormant till the sun awakens it's sap with the lengthening of days, calling it to grow again, to rise further from this earth, to reach up and out and away.
Who planted the seed or when, I will never know. How many children have eaten it's fruit or played beneath it's bows is knowledge known to itself alone.
Tonight it waits for another springtime. A springtime when my own young ones will watch with anticipation for the buds to break forth with new greenness, and for the misshapen pears to ripen out of their reach in hopes that some will drop to the ground in time for them to enjoy the imperfect beauty and sweetness.
A shadow with white frosted brightness. A gnarled, bending and overgrown outline against a frozen white landscape. A time worn beauty. A fruit tree in winter.

1 comment:

  1. This is beautiful. I don't know how I missed it.

    I love the pictures of the kids you have posted, they may be sick, but it's nice seeing their smiling faces!

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