Thirsty Bones

Its quiet this morning. The moisture that condensed on the window over night blurrs and obscures a view of the yard, excpet through thin rivulets that streak down like tears. The grass is bright green and standing at attention. Powder blue lichen on the reptilian bark of the apricot tree is brilliant under the ashen sky.

For three years Ive been looking out on that tree. Watching it change through the seasons and produce fruit. Watching as Frank fills up shopping bags full of Apricots every Summer. Watching the blossoms bud and blaze their little magenta hearts to the world, then fade and drop to the ground like martyrs in their graves, nourishing further growth.

I watched the plump heart shaped leaves take their familiar form. Almost peripherally conscious of them, you come and go, smile and cry, taste the black salty blood seeping through the cracks in your soul, and one day you look up and are slapped in the face with a bonfire of green and yellow. You watch it die again and again. Over and over. And sit with its barren limbs through the winter months. the two of you silhouetted together against the darkening sky and shortening days.

Theres a silent yearning in those limbs. Those black, skeletal fingers that curl against the icy backdrop of the unknown blue love that mourns over them. Longing for what they know, without any speech, must surely come. Longer days and a gentle sun. Warmth spreading in their thirsty bones, lying dormant under the earth.