Love Tree

(Copyright 2002 by Musenik. All rights reserved.)

I who have stood since the time of the great cedars. Those tall giants, straight and strong, were cut for ships. I who raise my arms like a cripple begging the sun, my skin bursts in spring with scented lips. Come summer, I unfurl lime hearts to cool the earth.

I remember her. She was a villager fleeing up the hill to escape the smoke and shelling. She helped a man climb with her until he could not step higher, and she took him to my shade.

She was determined but weary, small for her age, young for her lessons. She whispered to herself as she lay her charge before me. Her words were prayers and curses. She spoke aloud only encouragement to the man as she knelt over him. She trembled, hoping he did not notice her tremors.

Grief and injury tumbled in turmoil beneath his head scarf. Relief and regret broke through as the woman tended his wounds. His humble cloth glistened with blood. Flies landed on it and nourished themselves. He shouted passion, delirious sympathy and desire overwhelmed him. He loved her. He wanted her. She assured him. She loved him. She wanted him. She wept.

Through my leaves, the man looked toward his god for mercy. Warm light sprinkled upon him. The woman bathed his forehead with water from a plastic jug. Removing the scarf was forbidden to her. Rivulets, pink like the petals of my spring, washed into the soil.

A calm took him and his eyes were clear. He reached out and grasp the hem of the woman's robe. He tugged it free from her knees. He shuddered and coughed with the last of his strength. His arm fell back.

She did not speak. She obeyed. She took his hand to her breast and kissed his skin. She tasted the burnt propellant splashed upon it. She opened the top of her robe, removed her arms from its sleeves, and placed his palm upon a bare nipple. She grunted when her soft flesh was forcefully gripped by his fingers. Fear shouted through them.

The man raised his head for a moment. His mouth would have expressed the plea that filled his eyes but another fit took his frame. Coughing and flailing, his body kicked stones and twigs across the hillside, but the woman did not flinch when his fingers cut into her tit.

His hand fell away and his breath was short. "My son." He whispered. "Give me my son." His eyes emptied their desire at her.

Her hands did not doubt. She opened his trousers and freed him. His manhood was dark and struggling for strength. Passion wrestled blood away from his wounds. She kissed his dry lips and held him. She must not delay. She did not hesitate. She rose to a crouch and lifted robe to waist. Her hands swiftly removed her undergarment and she stepped across his loins. There was no time to untie her sash. She lowered himself upon the dying man, but he did not penetrate.

The man's head was dull with pain. His eyes upon her bare cleft did not register it's potency. His cock tried with love to fill her, but he had been raised ignorant of the body. Even rumor was not spoken between devout men. Lust was denied them. His love was powerful, but his flesh was too weak.

The woman didn't understand at first. She should have felt him, inside. She looked, but the man's foreskin was closed. She remembered, while his fold was unopened he could not enter. Her eyes turned their questions to his eyes. They were barely aware of her.

She had heard a story once. It was never written down. Most believed it a sin. She was not certain it was a sin, but she knew her god's will. If she suffered perdition for it, and her son was born tainted, still she would conceive him. Women speak of certain things only to other women, things that occur in the mud houses, their shelters from the sun. It is how she had heard the story. The woman looked again at the man. Her face displayed her resolve, and she moved away. Taking his flesh to her mouth, she raised him.

If a messenger of heaven had appeared, his face might have grown more full of life. His hope soared as the woman brought forth in him the body's desire. He could feel her tongue awkwardly seek his root. Her lips, trembling from anxiety, coated his shaft with hot spittle. Her mouth slicked its length of foreskin and peeled it back. Blood rushed to fill his member.

Before the crime of Onan could be accused, the woman released her sucking and once more she knelt upon his loin.

The man cried out as he pushed into her. His pains all faded and his mind was filled with joy. The woman worked her cleaving swiftly, desperately. She huffed and worried. She did not think of her own pleasure. She had been severed from receiving it. Her thighs tensed and relaxed, bringing flesh into her nest and pulling away, off from it. It felt right, somehow, an important thing, his gift running through her cunt. She held the man's face in her hand and she fucked him bravely. Tears followed the ridge of her puffed cheeks, and they spilled far away from her smile. He kissed her as their actions permitted.

"I love you, wife." The man's voice was like a vapor. His eyes closed, and his muscles died.

"Husband..." She said. "HUSBAND!" She shrieked. The wisp of a woman shook the great mass of human like it were cloth, shaking it for life. No life issued. His body left hers as his soul evaporated.

...and then she wailed. The grasses covering this hill rippled, and stones trembled in sympathy. Bricks and mortar that had made the buildings in the village below, heard her. Its rubble grieved equally. Even the smoke rising to heaven paid respect to her madness. A wind bent it low from the sky. Across the valley, her cry joined one thousand others. It rang upon the earth until her voice expired.

The young villager looked upon my crooked arms for mercy. She untied the sash from her robe.

Now the sun lingers briefly for a day, and its angle heads towards winter. My hearts are golden upon the ground, soon to be dust. I have no mercy for God. I remember when I hung the man who had killed the one He loved. I am filled with wonder.

Romance through the eyes of Cercis Siliquastrum : Love Tree, Judas Tree, The Mediterranean Redbud.