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Fig Tree (Nature Piece)
i am posting this nature piece under poetry because it seems like the most suitable place to put it, as there are no forums for nature writings. What are the strong/ weak points of this piece? This is my second draft.
The leaves on the fig tree are turning from bright rich garden green to dark bold yellow. Years ago, in a self expression of personality, the fig tree renounced the traditional shape and structure of a tree. The white barked tree has a short trunk which converts into skinny limbs growing out in a hodgepodge fashion reinventing itself into the shape of a large flower growing out of the corner where the whitewashed adobe wall connects with the adobe wall of the house. I am reminded of a beautiful living speaker, dashed with green and shades of bright yellow singing to the sun and impressionably blue sky. Tucked in it’s snug corner, the fig tree reaches out, some branches resting on the adobe tiles of the backyard, and others reaching up to the corners of the roof, forming a half coliseum, colored blades strain to see the concert of sunlight.
My friend the fig tree has leaves that are about five or six inches long, some are as big as ten. Each has five lobes symmetrical in design. The tips of each lobe look similar in design to playing card clubs, but the end of each lobe has more of a defined point. A system of veins branches down each lobe; some of the veins contain memories of color, green, a little red. On the tips of some lobes, yellow backs off, and is replaced with a crisp, crunchy brown. Moving away from the edges of the leaf, down the lobes and back towards the center, microscopic white fuzz grows. The undersides of fig leaves are vulnerable and unprotected, exposing veins, similar to those on the back of a grandmother’s hands. This leaf is in its last days. In a few weeks it will dry up, crunch under shoes, and be stolen forever by a fall breeze. Its demise is appearing in brown patches on the tips of its lobes, yet the leaves on fig tree pull out all the stops to sing their last and most beautiful chorus before their final exit.
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