The Pear Tree

All by its lonesome in the little backyard, the pear tree stood dutifully next to a dilapidated shed throughout the year. The neglected grass reached up for the tree in its attempts to turn the backyard into a wildflower meadow, its weeds adding specks of color to the dry green landscape. Every spring, when the pear tree was supposed to be in bloom, the greedy shed stole half of its prescription for sunlight. Still, the tree bloomed where it could, withstanding bitter mornings and the overcast sky’s purgative downpours. Planted with intention in the loamy soil by weathered, maternal hands, the pear tree was expected to outlive each generation of children that attempted to hang from its lower limbs and play hide and seek behind its plump trunk. As the years slipped by, the tree oversaw the happenings in the backyard, growing stronger than the shed, which collapsed in an autumn storm. Ruler of the tranquil backyard, the pear tree finally basked in all of the sun she deserved, producing portly pears in the thick summer air of each harvest season. In those golden years, the same group of women would pour out of the back door and twist the pears just so, eager to taste the rousing sweetness of pear juice on their tongues. These women tended only to the tree, continuing to ignore the weeds but eventually clearing away the rotting bones of the old shed that hid in the tall grass. This steadfast pack of women, the pear tree's loyal subjects, began to dwindle in size as the years went on. One particularly humid summer, the back door remained shut, spiderwebs woven within the stairway that led to the deck. Vermin seized the tree’s fallen pears from the tall grass, which threatened to overtake the yard. The branches, once poised at a regal height, began to sag. The pear tree’s reign was over. 

sinewy pear tree 

I can only hope to be 

as fruitful as you