by Sharon Lynn Griffiths
We were waiting the day
it was dumped on the sidewalk.
Skinny, wrapped in a burlap diaper,
bound the full length of its trunk.
Mary said weíd have to cut that bandage off,
so it wouldn't suffocate.
They stuffed it in a two-foot square
between our houses,left it shivering
in a cloud of exhaust, propped
by two splintered poles
and a twist of metal like a collar.
I thought weíd get an elm or something
that would stand a better chance.
To help it, we broke nails tearing bricks
from the pit, raking with our fingers.
We had no worms to turn the dirt, so we used
the roots of sweet allysum -
and my unaccustomed hands
began to look like Mary's - for a while.
We carried many buckets that first summer,
water sloshing down our stoops,
until the roots were long enough
to reach the spring that crosses 49th Street.
It carries off soil every summer, and when
the street splits opens like an empty fist,
cars lose their hubcaps all night long.
To Mary, the tree was a cherished proxy
for the peach she had grown from a pit,
and with sheer Hellís Kitchen persistence,
willed it to make flowers and the sweetest fruit
I ever tasted. Then she watched it die, drowned
in spite, in the second-hand light
of an old-law courtyard.
It was to be my symbol of survival in chaos
(I was trying to be so tough at the time).
A daily lesson in urban strength,
the grace that comes from elemental living.
I showed all my friends, pointing with pride
down the block to the others.
Ours got less light and was twice as big.
I hate the big, busy buildings
now standing across the street,
crowding out the precious light.
But Mary still sweeps around the pit.
She moves more slowly now.
I make sure to touch that tree whenever I'm there -
even if it means crossing the street in the rain.
A self-conscious salutation - just long enough
to feel that tough and fragile life
and give back some of the grace and strength
I've found in the meantime.
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