XIII. The Labour Tree.

My labour tree has yet to flower,

but grows taller, likes to mock me.

No fruit, no colour, no soft hour

has paused its stillness to regard me.

I’ve watered it most days this year,

though not a bloom has come to show,

not even buds that might appear

to mean a little more than no.

I’ve cleared the weeds, I’ve pulled the rot,

I’ve pruned it back to give it space.

They say the patient gain a lot,

And still no bloom has touched this place.

But part of me still loves the sound

of tending what won’t bloom just yet,

the brush of shovel in the ground,

the way the roots remember wet.

I’ve worked too long to walk away.

It hasn’t flowered, that is true.

But trees can be a stubborn vow.

And I’ve been known to be one too.

No sound, no sign, just empty air.

Just leaves that neither shade nor fall.

It stands, unmoved, too mute to care,

a living thing that keeps me stalled.

And yet I rise, I fetch the pail,

I speak to it with half a smile,

the way you might to something frail

that hasn’t moved in quite a while.

A tree like this could bruise your pride.

It stands there still, without regret.

Some mornings, I have nearly cried

to pour my love and get back debt.

But something in me stays in place,

perhaps from habit more than hope.

A stubborn kind of middle grace

that teaches hands the way to cope.

The truth is, I don’t need much more,

a bit of green, a line of sky.

A root that runs beneath the floor

is still a reason not to die.

I planted it in softer soil

than most would trust to hold a tree.

I didn’t ask for bloom or spoil,

just something that might outlast me.

I water it for quite some time,

this tree I planted word by word.

I line its roots with loss and rhyme,

then wait. And no one ever heard.

No passerby would pause or guess

the weight of what this tree withstood.

They’d call it barren, call it less,

not knowing slow can still be good.

One day, perhaps, it will unfold,

a single flower, pale and shy.

And if it does, I will not scold

the years it took to bloom or try.

The fruit of labor rarely shows

when we would have it quick and near.

It ripens late. In shade it grows

and waits beyond what’s sharp and clear.

But still I come. Though silence stays.

The roots go deep where eyes don't see.

I do not write to win the fruit,

I write so you'll remember me.

And so I tend, and so I stay,

a little wiser, less exact.

Not every tree is meant to pay.

Some only teach us how to act.

No flower bloomed to mark the day.

No fruit appeared to name the cost.

It simply stood and held its sway,

unbending, leafless, slightly lost.

Yet even stones can cradle spring.

I’ve seen it, not with proof, my own.

I do not write for sudden bloom.

I write to feel the roots I've grown.

And maybe what I’ve planted here

won’t blossom in my present light.

Perhaps it leans to some far year,

a softer dawn, a stranger’s night.

But I will tend it just the same,

no crowd, no cheer, no guarantee.

For fruit may be a quiet flame

that waits for someone after me.

And should it bloom when I am gone,

so be it. Let it bloom with grace.

I’ll still have loved this rooted song,

this standing tree, this silent place.

For what it’s worth,

-Charlene Iris

One thought at a time.

One truth at a time. 

Because some epiphanies stay with you.