Autumn Fall Spring Instant

“Thank you,” he whispered. “One more time.”

He came back to the bench every day anyway. He brought a thermos of tea and two cups—one for him, one for the tree’s roots. He read Lena’s favorite poems aloud, his voice thin as old paper. And he waited. autumn fall spring

He came back with a small wooden box that afternoon. Inside were things he had saved for decades: Lena’s pressed leaves, each one labeled with a year; a dried marigold from their wedding; a lock of her hair, silver and soft as spider silk. “Thank you,” he whispered

Emory had been the park’s groundskeeper for forty-two years. He had planted that maple when it was a whip-thin sapling, no thicker than his thumb. He had watered it through droughts, staked it through storms, and talked to it through every lonely season after his wife, Lena, died. He read Lena’s favorite poems aloud, his voice