The Son, the Father, and the Tree...

The Son, the Father, and the Tree

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     Not very far from here a boy and his father stood at the entrance to a forest just before the gray dawn.

     "Take the bag," the father told his son, as the son started toward the nearest tree. "You will need it to carry the fruit."

     "Father," the boy said, "I am old enough to carry the fruit down and climb up again. I do not need a bag."

     "That is not the way to treat the fruit," the father replied. "We want the whole fruit, not fruit that is scarred or pecked at." He looked up the trunk of the nearest tree and the branches loaded down with the first fruit of the season. "Hurry now, the ravens are waking."

     The boy took the rough bag from his father and tied it onto his rope belt so that a small opening at the top remained. He leaped for the lowest branch and caught it, and then he felt the bowing of the branch as he pulled his weight fully onto it. Before the wood cracked he had taken a grip on the overhead branch and pulled himself onto it, closer to the truck.

     The dawn had just blown in a chill wind when the boy arrived within reach of the thick clusters of large green fruit, which were protected from the elements by the outer branches. He checked  nearby nests, but the birds still slept in the near darkness.

     The boy moved quietly up the branched so as not to wake the sleeping inhabitants. His father called the ravens thieves, but the boy reasoned that man and bird could share the bountiful harvest, just as their families shared the trees for making shelter.

     Thinking too deeply of the homes of bird and man distracted the boy and caused his hand to slip. Before he completely tumbled out of the tree he seized a spring branch. The wood bounced silently, but the leaves at the end snapped together like fingers. The boy searched for the nearest branch that could bear his weight.

     "My son, are you all right?" the father called.

     The boy twisted his head as he looked for a place to reach for or a place to land. His eyes adjusted to the movement of the branch and the strain of the shadows, which was a different labor than watching the forests at night to see what was outside of the shelter the father and son called home.

     Suddenly another pair of eyes peeped out of the dawn shadows. The boy watched as the cluster of noisy leaves at the end of the branch filled with one, two, three pairs of eyes. Mouthless voices began to chirp.

     The boy knew the hungry mouths wanted to eat soon. He knew the parents of the little ones would do whatever they could to feed their protesting chicks. He let the swaying of the branch he clung to subside. The boy knew of two branches above him that looked close enough together from the ground. They appeared to be able to support his weight and enable him to reach the fruit they held above the earth. But he asked himself if he could get to those branches while he could still find fruit for himself and his father among the leaves.

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