Why the Dogwood Tree Grows
Why the dogwood tree grows.
In the middle of a vacant filed stands a grand dogwood tree where the crows gather daily. People flock far and wide just to gaze at its majestic stature and overwhelming beauty wondering silently amongst themselves, “How this tree came to be.”
Shrouded in secrecy lays the scattered bones of a dead man.
His hands rest against his thighs, his head turned upright as his soil filled eyes gaze upward awaiting the warm glow of the sun that sadly never comes.
The man laid to rest beneath the black dirt over time had long been forgotten, he no longer had a name, no home, or even a family of his own. Just the loving roots he had been encased in long ago.
But how this event came to be only three could say.
The women, the murder, and the forever silent dogwood tree.
The restless bones belonged to a man, a young man who had fallen in love and courted another mans betrothed. The women cared for the simple gardening man and the many trees his nimble fingers tended but her fiance was a jealous chap with rage to match.
And upon one final night after witnessing their true loves kiss the grief stricken cohort stuck the man down with his rusted pick axe and banished the gardener to his hand dug grave, placing his lifeless corpse in a vacant filed in which no one came. But what the enraged man didn’t foresee was the seed of a dogwood tree.
It fell from the deceased pocket and grew from the gardeners heart.
Year after year the tree budded magnificent flowers each possessing a hint of red staining their petals.
People marveled in its splendor gazing at the unique tree, gasping in awe and glee, but for one women its beauty agonized her for its existence was a constant reminder that no justice, nor revenge could ever be won for her simple gardening man.
And as the roots steamed onward feeling the caressing flow of a spring wind on its crimson petals the mans chest flooded with air and his dry, frail skeleton once more exuded life;
And as she eyed the swaying branches his memory suddenly came to life.
He was the air the tree inhaled, the nutrients it desperately needed to grow, and the reason it thrived.
Even in death he had the gardeners touch.
Her wrinkled face light up with love and for the first time in fifty years she smiled in happiness thinking to herself.
“That is why the dog wood tree grows, its out of love for my dead mans bones.”
Copyright © Whitney Hart | Year Posted 2012
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