The Orchard

I arrived with one seed

cupped beneath my tongue.

I had never planted before.

So I buried it

in the first piece of earth

that made me want to stay.

I did not know how much of myself

a garden could ask for.

I only knew that something beneath the soil

had begun to take root, and I was afraid

to leave it unattended.

So every morning,

I brought it water from the only well I knew.

I carried it in my hands through every season.

I built it a fence from the pieces of myself

I thought I could spare. I tied the branches

when they bent. I pulled weeds

from around its roots.

I learned the language

of its leaves,

which ones curled

when the weather changed,

which ones needed shade,

which ones reached for the sun.

I gave it the fruit before it had learned

the shape of my name.

I thought, perhaps, a garden was made this way

one seed, one patch of earth,

one pair of hands

returning to the same place.

I thought the first flower

was always the most important.

I thought the first fruit

was something sacred.

So I kept my hands

from every other garden.

There were other fields.

I knew that.

The world was full of them.

But I had found one piece of earth

and decided it was enough.

I did not scatter my seeds along the roads.

I did not ask the wind 

where else they might grow.

I did not stand beneath a hundred branches

wondering which one might shelter me.

I had one garden.

And I loved it as if having one

meant I was the only thing

growing there.

But beneath the soil, there were roots

I had never seen. Other branches

had once reached for the same sun.

Other blossoms had known the warmth

of the gardener's hands. 

Other petals had opened beneath

the same sky.

And I..

I had mistaken being the tree

he kept tending..

for being the first tree he had ever wanted to grow. 

Perhaps that was foolish.

Perhaps a garden was never a promise

of being the first. 

Perhaps the earth does not remember

which seed came before.

Perhaps the sun does not choose

which flower deserves

its warmth.

But I had been living

as though love was a single door.

As though one person

entered, and every other path

disappeared behind them.

I did not know that some people

walk through gardens

without naming what they leave behind.

I did not know that a hand

can water more than one tree.

That a gardener can carry seeds 

in every pocket and still one day

decide to build

a fence around one place.

Now there is a gate at the edge of the orchard.

Iron.

Beautiful.

Made to last.

Someone is holding a key shaped like forever.

And I should be thinking

of the hinges,

the lock,

the way the gate will close behind me.

I should be imagining

the years ahead,

the branches growing taller,

the roots growing deeper,

the orchard becoming

something too large to remember its beginning.

But I keep looking

at the trees beyond the fence.

Because I want to understand,

when the gardener 

walked through all those fields,

what made him stop here?

Was it the fruit?

The shade?

The way this tree

never asked to be carried?

The way this tree never asked for anything? 

Was it the way its branches bent 

toward his hands?

Was it the way

it made a home of the soil

without asking whether the earth 

had ever belonged to another root?

Or was there something

in the roots he had been searching for

without knowing its name?

I wish I knew.

I wish there were

some mark beneath the bark,

some ring inside the wood,

some way to count

the distance between

being found and being chosen.

Because I do not know

what it means to be the tree

that remains.

I do not know whether remaining

is the same as being wanted.

I do not know whether the gardener

looked at this orchard and saw a place

he had been searching for,

or simply saw the only tree 

that had not yet

been cut down.

And perhaps that is the cruelest thing

about growing.

A tree cannot ask what the gardener saw

before he came to it.

It cannot ask which branches

he once touched.

It cannot ask whether its fruit

was the sweetest,

or merely

the fruit he happened

to reach that year.

It can only stand there, roots buried,

branches open, wondering whether

the hands that tend it

know the difference between love

and shelter.

So I keep watering. 

I keep returning.

I keep standing

beneath the same sky, though sometimes

the leaves tremble

when the wind passes through them.

And somewhere beyond the orchard,

there are fields

I will never see.

Seeds

I will never know.

Flowers

whose names

will never belong to me.

Perhaps that should not matter.

Perhaps the only thing that matters

is the garden that is here now.

But there is a difference

between knowing

you are loved

and knowing

you were chosen.

And there is a difference

between being chosen

and knowing why.

I do not want to be the last tree

left standing

after every other garden

has withered.

I do not want to be the shade

someone rests beneath

because the other trees

were too far away.

I do not want to be the fruit

picked because

it was closest to hand.

I want to believe that somewhere

between all the fields,

all the paths,

all the seasons

that came before,

there was a moment

when the gardener

looked upon this earth

and knew, not that it was

the only garden,

but that it was

the one he wanted

to tend.

I want to believe

that the fence was not built

because there was nowhere else to go.

I want to believe the key was made

because the gate was worth closing.

And maybe one day

I will stop searching the horizon

for the gardens that came before.

Maybe one day I will understand

that a tree does not become

less beloved

because other seeds

once touched the earth.

Maybe one day I will believe

that being chosen late

does not mean being chosen lightly.

But for now,

I am still learning the difference

between being the only tree

and being

the tree someone

finally decided

to call home.

And until I know, I will keep my roots

beneath this soil,

my branches

beneath this sky, and the unopened gate

between us.

I wish I knew

whether I was planted,

or simply

the last thing

that grew.

-dmnd