All the love you will ever feel
you have always carried within you

The pellet you think love is

blooms into stone,
into flame, into glass

The tree knows
how to feed every part of itself

When you tap the tree
to drink it
it speaks to you

There is sweetness in you
All the self can do
is melt
~Hannah Stephenson from “Sap Season”

The last remaining cherry tree on this farm, a Royal Anne, has stood between house and barn for over ninety years, bearing heavily some years, and other years, like this one, yielding only a handful of fruit. Last year was a bumper crop followed by a hot dry summer and a bitter cold winter. The old tree was overly stressed, its branch joints and bark defects oozing miniature sculptures of resin in response.

These secretions feel hard and seem glass-like, yet reflecting this tree’s slow internal circulation, they change subtly day by day. This amber becomes this tree’s aging and suffering made manifest. Though its cherries burst with juicy flavor, it bleeds crystalline flame from its wounds.

What a gift is this leaking love, moving deep inside an old trunk. In its thirsty anguish, our dear cherry tree is weeping to reflect the sun.