The teacher and the cherry tree

He led the way, limping into the wooded path

Following the weaving paviours

Through the cool green over-grown bushes

And around the clinging branches of untrimmed shrubs.

“Somewhere here,” he told me, “she found a Cornel Cherry tree.”

He walked on, stick leading each anxious step, and hope lifting his heart.

And suddenly – a carpet of droplet cherries. Eagerly we harvested.

Not all ripe, but some edible and sweetening.

Here, among the shadows of the tiny park,

seen only through the backs of overlooking flats

The Cornel cherries decorated the brown earth.

And he stood, all stick and excitement following the fall of fruit.

We filled the bag.

But his eagerness to show me what they had shared that day,

That afternoon,

Spoke eloquently of things he could not say.

The joy was in the memory, the re-discovery and now the sharing.

Teaching more than he knew

As he moved through the overgrown pathway

To find the Cornel Cherry tree.