November 25, 2009

In 1995 I cut down a prune tree. I think it was a volunteer. The fruit was small and not to my taste. The next year some suckers came up and for some reason lost to me I let one of them grow. Fourteen years later I cut that ‘sucker’ down. It had grown to 25 feet in height and was taking over. It’s trunk was 16 inches in diameter.

I think of the poetry of Isaiah:
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots. (11.1)
I wonder what kind of tree he had in mind? Or perhaps it was a ‘nurse log’, those fallen decaying trees out of which another tree roots and grows. There are some magnificent examples of these ‘nurse logs, in our coastal forests.

Life is so tenacious, abundant, and ever adaptive. I know I have not finished with that prune tree. “A shoot shall come out from its stump….” I plan to keep the shoots cut off but unless that tree is rooted out it will eventually ‘win out’ and grow to 25 feet again! It is a strange kind of relationship. I subject the ‘other’ to severe pruning and it responds silently and slowly to the life impulse to be fruitful and multiply. There is no anger or sorrow in the relationship, at least that I am aware of. I am grateful for the prune tree’s vigor and its persistent reminder that “to every thing there is a season”…including a season for me. A somber thought that leaves me grateful for each day.