APPLE TREES

To see you wander in the orchard, swift through the trunks of apple, filling your trug with the ripened fruit; I walk all the way down the hill. Staggering along the twists of the clear stream, hearing its clear waves roll over the pebbles. Right at the neck of the valley, where the sun kisses the mist goodbye, I stand and watch you pick the apples.

There was this happiness in me in your contentment. You rubbing their red skin, inhaling the ripened smell, gently keeping them in the trug, teasing at the drops of dew that vulnerably clings to leaf margins and the smile of satiation that beamed on your face against the climbing sun seeing your efforts develop into sweet smelling fruit, was unmatched.

I went there every day, just to witness your happiness. Every time you retired to your house, walking through the ringing trees and across the creeper strangled path, balancing the apple filled trug in the bent of your elbow; I promised myself to come here again. I promised to come...till you will be there.

One winter day when i saw villagers dig up the snow laden earth and lower a coffin in the shade thrown by the branches of apple, I knew walking down the hill won't have the same flair.

Still...with the fall of summer as white buds of apple started to open on the lap of fresh green leaves, I promised to go there till the trees continue to flower. Because despite the hurting fact, my conscience can still see her walking through the trees, teasing at the dew.

Decades later when i visit the place and find that the hills have been dynamited and wide asphalt roads now cut through the plains with no trace of trees, I found myself making up my mind to visit the place till the mighty sky stands above it.

I decided so when I saw by the wide roads a little boy sitting on the knees. His head ducked and hands lifting chunks of soil with a trowel.

Sweat drips from his forehead and then suddenly before his face, I saw the swaying of a sapling's branches. White buds on fresh green leaves. He continued to pat the loose soil at its roots as his mother sprinkles water from a pitcher.

The boy's smile confirming that there will be apples next summer for sure...:) ^_^

© Sobhan Pramanik.