Reach for the Sky

by Charlotte Savage

It was a small blue spruce,

The prettiest of all pine trees.

Discovered in an Ipswich garden center,

a dwarf amid giants.

We planted it in the corner of our yard.

 Anticipating that someday its branches

 would fill an empty expanse of land,

 while muffling the traffic on our main street.

“Plant it as deep as the top of the roots,” said the salesman.                

My husband and I dug through hard packed rock and dirt

to just the right depth,

on a sweltering, sticky, ninety degree day.

“Fertilize it, give it lots of water,” he had directed.

We followed his instructions to the nth degree.

My husband fetching fertilizer from the garage;

While I filled the hole with water.

We carefully placed the tree into the ground,

cutting the burlap surrounding its roots.

It stood three feet tall

the blue-green branches perfectly spaced.

Two weeks later I discovered

brown tipped needles blanketing the ground beneath the tree;

Its branches sadly drooped,

I knew it was dying.

Panicking, I thought to save it.

I hurried to the garage for more fertilizer; 

Discovered weed killer sitting on top of the bag of fertilizer.

Instantly I knew the tree was not dying; my husband had killed it!

No one thought to pull the dead tree trunk out of the ground

It was two inches in diameter and

just tall enough for our thirteen year old son to jump over it

on his way to school each day.

Five years passed, the beginning of yet another spring.

The trunk of the tree suddenly sprouted buds!

Within a month the buds were tiny branches.

The beginnings of pine needles could be seen.

Now fifty years later,

The tree’s expanse fills the entire corner of our land,

Its massive height towers over our two story house;

the branches sagging under the weight of its pine cones.

This magnificent blue spruce

is  living  proof

That adversity can be conquered;

Like the sky, it has no boundaries.

©2015 Charlotte Savage all rights reserved