THE PEACH TREE

There was an ‘Old Gardener’ who tended to a large fruit orchard. At the start of each spring he would go into the orchard to tend to the trees and prune them. He would go to each tree and tenderly tend to it; spitting its soil, and pruning its branches. In the late afternoon after much labour he would go and tend to his favourite tree in the middle of the orchard. It was a beautiful peach tree called ‘EARTH’ that bore fruit richly when it was her due. He would spit in fresh compost into the soil to prepare it for further growth, and she had an abundance to grow and feed on. Then he would tenderly start to prune her branches and shoots. These were the lives and death of men, as they fell in war, accident and plague, so fell the branches and the shoots as he trimmed them. He pruned this tree with great care over many seasons, and it grew to be a marvel and a beauty of nature. Its fruit was always soft, sparking, succulent and sweet; and when her flowers bloomed in spring, it had a miracle charm about it, and its fragrance was as sweet as the wisp of the wind that carried it. The flowers were the children yet to bloom to wholesome fruit – which was the labour of their deeds. And so the cycle of life repeated itself endlessly for all time to come in ‘The Old Man’s’ magical orchard of wonders and life everlasting.