The Apricot Tree

The Apricot Tree


Though it was established
with a grand root system
which drew its needed moisture
from deep within the earth,
he tended it daily
as a gardener would a rosebush.
He tracked the seasons with its foliage,
and took great pride in the imperceptible
widening of its trunk. Even in mid-
January, when its leafless branches
clacked in the howling wind
like the antlers of rutting stags,
he’d don his heaviest coat,
take his place on his porch,
and watch it through the afternoon
to dusk. Sans even moving, it creaked him
through the seasons like a wagon,
tugging him toward the summer
of his ninetieth year, toward dark green branches
bowed with the bounty of apricots, fecund
with the promise of baskets and damsels.


Larry D. Thomas

Posted over on Larry D. Thomas Blog Site