30 September 2008
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree...
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
"Trees" by Joyce Kilmer
There are apple trees growing in my front yard. That delicate reach of leafy arms someone once called lifted in prayer, the smooth stretch of young bark, tugs at my soul and my own arms ache to reach upward.
But actually my apple trees don't. The last gardener was training them to bend out along the fence-line, all around the roses. So they sit flat and squat like a child's drawing: six even arms protruding from a fence-high trunk. The sweet green apples sit on the hard ground where the branches have bowed to lay them. I ate one after school last week and it tasted of grass and sunshine and a bit like summer rain.
But the gardener's left or moved on or retired. The roses need clipping and the geraniums need weeding. The apple trees are sending out odd limbs vertically; they look skewampus for their reaching and remind me to prune this week.
Some days I am an apple-tree fence. But today I am a renegade twig that can't help but stretch out of bounds to pray.
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3 comments:
I want to be renegade, too. I already registered as an independent, maybe what I need to do is to stretch out my arms and pray :-). I loved the peaceful allusion. Mom
keep stretching. it is only then when we are safe. usually when we don't humble ourselves and grow, we have to be caused to be humble... i know from experience too. love you.
I am jealous of your apple trees. Where are you living?
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