The Open Book

What a Tree Sees

     Apparently, my name is Cherry Tree.  At least, that’s what my planters call me.  I’m three years old, and I sit in the roomy yard of an old white house.  My neighbor is a fiery Japanese maple.  In their early springtime prime, my blossoms are pale pink—the color of the walls in the corner room of my planters’ house.  When one of my planters, a young lady with sad eyes and dark curls, first put me into the deep, rich soil, she would talk to me.  She told me that the pink room is empty.  That her baby girl would have liked to look out her window and see my pretty branches.  But this is God’s way, she says, and they’ll try again, whatever that means.  She still talks to me when she waters me, and she makes me feel important because she tells me that I was stuffed into the earth right here for her little girl.  My planter seems awfully sad most of the time, but yesterday was different.  Yesterday, she smiled and laughed and told me that God is good.  My planter has told me millions of times that God is the one who gives me sunshine, so I already figured that He was a pretty good fellow.  But yesterday, my planter didn’t tell me about sunshine.  She told me that God is good, God is good, over and over, beaming and glowing all the while.  But I don’t know why she’s so happy.  You would think that she would be upset, considering that her belly’s starting to look awfully rounded.  I think she needs to stop eating so many of my cherries.