a little plum tree which has yet to ever produce fruit on its own, a cutting from a larger life supplanted in soil far from home, is taken from its root over and over by the mower blade. every week the fault anew, this week it was mine and next week you will forget the place we planted it. each time the growth is always upwardly. still we, fantod fed, bite nails to raw pink diurnal, our arms around one another’s rhythmic breathing, checking for pulse, listening for beats. hedge-hearted, we don’t cry too often to feel it. rolling thunder down the palisades, and that in mind, we are planning a visit to the mother tree. to that hearth which gave to us life as a swaddled thread of herself, moistened in paper towel, we come with the intention to thank her by simply pressing our hands against her, lovingly on her trunk, and to seek empathy within ourselves for sacrifices so minor and mighty. we sit and turn these things over, chewing our fingers until she lovingly drops a fruit into our lap.
