My Cherry Tree
Our garden was shaded by a huge cherry tree. It was there when we bought the house and has lived for decades. When we were buying the house there was a hammock between that cherry tree and an old apple tree. It looked idyllic. I could just imagine lying in it on warm summer days, reading and sipping a beer. I never did. The garden was mainly a place I had to mow trim and work in. I never found the time to laze. The kids loved that hammock though; they used it as a swing.
But I loved that tree. Every spring it would burst into life with fresh green leaves that were like a joyous rebirth. In early summer it was festooned with blossom so that it was a huge great pink candy-floss. In autumn it was covered in cherries. The birds feasted on them and we only managed to get a few. The grass underneath was covered in pips. In winter its skeleton made intricate patterns against the sky.
The birds roosted high in its branches and felt safe.
Then it became diseased and I had to have it sawn down. There is a big hole in the garden where it used to be. There is a stump in the ground.
I have the body of that tree. It was sawn into big chunks that I chopped and sawed into blocks. There is a big woodpile all along the wall.
This winter I am burning those logs. Every time I put one on the fire I think of my tree. It is still giving. The light and heat that it stored through those decades are being given back out. The wood that it made from water, carbon dioxide and sunlight, is now warming my house and giving me pleasure.
There is always going to be a hole where it stood. It’s a hole filled with memories.
The Cherry Tree
The sun used to shine on my green cherry tree
As year upon year it stored energy
Like a battery –
Water to sugar
Carbon to cherry.
Sunlight captured
For bird, bee and me.
It was busy building perches
And changing sugar to wood,
Sugar to nectar
And sugar to fruit
Doing all it could.
After many a decade
It succumbed to disease
And was sawn to the ground
And brought to its knees.
Now its remains are stacked by the wall
Chopped into logs and blocks
That will all end on my burner
As I work through the stocks.
All that stored up energy
Collected through decades
Released into light
Heat and temperature grades.
I’ve lost my cherry tree
Its blossom, fruit, leaf and beauty.
But that glorious
Individual
Is still giving something useful back to me.
I’m grateful
For its great bounty.
I shall miss it in all those seasons
There’s a hole where it used to be
Filled with love
In my memory.
Opher 19.10.2015