The Best of Ruskin Bond Part 27

Since I placed my cherry seed in the gra.s.s.

'Must have a tree of my own,' I said-

And watered it once and went to bed

And forgot; but cherries have a way of growing

Though no one's caring very much or knowing,

And suddenly that summer, near the end of May,

I found a tree had come to stay.

It was very small, a five months' child,

Lost in the tall gra.s.s running wild.

Goats ate the leaves, gra.s.scutter's scythe

Split it apart, and a monsoon blight

Shrivelled the slender stem . . . Even so,

Next spring I watched three new shoots grow,

The young tree struggle, upwards thrust

Its arms in a fresh fierce l.u.s.t

For light and air and sun.

I could only wait, as one

Who watches, wondering, while Time and the rain

Made a miracle from green growing pain . . .

I went away next year-

Spent a season in Kashmir-

Came back thinner, rather poor,

But richer by a cherry tree at my door.

Six feet high, my own dark cherry,

And-I could scarcely believe it-a berry,

Ripened and jewelled in the sun,

Hung from a branch-just one!

And next year there were blossoms, small

Pink, fragile, quick to fall

At the merest breath, the sleepiest breeze . . .

I lay on the gra.s.s, at ease,

Looked up through leaves, at the blue

Blind sky, at the finches as they flew