Every April I am troubled by the same concern –that spring might not occur this year. The landscapelooks dull, with hills, sky and forest appearing gray.My spirits ebb, as they did during an April snowfallwhen I first came to Maine 15 years ago. “Just wait,”a neighbor advised.”You’ll wake up one morning andspring will just be here.”
And look, on May 3 that year I awoke to a greenso amazing as to be almost electric, as if spring weresimply a matter of flipping a switch. Hills, sky andforest revealed their purples, blues and green. Leaveshad unfolded and daffodils were fighting their wayheavenward.
Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on anundeveloped lot in my neighborhood. It belongs tono one and therefore to everyone. The tree’s darktwisted branches stretch out in unpruned(未经修剪的) abandon.Each spring it blossoms so freely that the air becomes filled with the scent of apple.
Until last year, I thought I was the only oneaware of this tree. And then one day, in a bit ofSp
ring madness, I set out with pruner to remove afew disorderly branches. No sooner had I arrivedunder the tree than neighbors opened their windowsand stepped onto their porches(门廊).These werepeople I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it wasas if I had come uninvited into their personalgardens.
My mobile-home neighbor was the first tospeak.”You’re not cutting it down, are you?” sheasked anxiously. Another neighbor frowned as I cutoff a branch.”Don’t kill it, now,” he warned. Soon halfthe neighborhood had joined me under the appletree. It struck me that I had lived there for five yearsand only now was learning these people’s names,what they did for a living and how they passed thewinter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering Us under its branches for the purpose of bothacquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn’t helprecalling Robert Frost’s words:
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds Todarken nature and be summer woods One thaw ledto another. Just the other day I saw one of myneighbors at the local store. He remarked how thisrecent winter had been especially long andcomplained of not having see
n or spoken at lengthto anyone in our neighborhood. And then, he lookedat me and said, “We need to prune that apple treeagain.”
i am me
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