5
One More Year
This tree
My apple tree, three houses down on my winding street
My apple tree
Sitting in the garden
Its roots overgrown
It’s old, yes
But it is such a small
Little
Tree
“We need to cut it down”
My Father says, “It doesn’t give good fruit”
Yes
I know
My small, pudgy, five year-old hands grasped my tiny tree’s trunk
“No!”, I scream
I pick off the scabs of white ruffles on its trunk
I remember hearing somewhere, on a nature hike, that these scabs helped the tree to die when its time came
To my five year-old mind
The scabs were a death sentence
My
Little
Tree
My tree laden with small, sour, green fruit
Fruit that I plucked with my tiny, plump, five year-old hands
Fruit that I swore was good
Fruit that wasn’t good
I couldn’t let go
It was my tree, my tree
My, little small, tiny tree
My tree whose roots are overgrown stealing the water from the rest of the garden
“The tree has to go” my father says
Yes
I know
I frown, tears in my eyes
My tongue sour with the taste of the green apples sparking across my taste buds
Sour with the thought of being uprooted
Sour with the idea of the death of a friend
“One more year”
Ten more “one more years” to be exact, though, I wasn’t going to tell him that
Now
I look outside
I see my little apple tree
Ten years older
Not growing
Blooming every year
With apples that are not as delectable as they are bitter and sour
Still so sour
And small
It has been ten years
My hands grasp the trunk
And pick off the white scabs
I know now that the little pixie skirts have no power over death
No more than I do
Yet I do it anyway
“It is not your time yet”
I whisper
Or perhaps its was that
I wasn’t ready for my tree to leave me
Perhaps I am not ready for my childhood to leave me
I press my head against my little tree’s trunk
“One more year”
I whisper
“Please”
Raagini Chandra: 1st Place
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