i think of persephone (don't you?)

There's a pomegranate tree in the back yard, bearing fruit.

What a huge surprise to look up and see something hanging, like an apple, from a tangled mess of what has looked like, for the past two years, knotted vines and trash trees. Melanie is the one who identified it as a pomegranate and, since then, Hank has clipped the vines away from the tree, and now we can see it in all of its glory. The fruit has only partially ripened, with ruby red stripes running from its base toward about half-way up the fruit, and we wonder if it might not ever come to edible fruition. But everytime I see it, I feel, what? -- interested. And as a result I've become more interested in all of the plant life in the back, including the potted citranella, the jade plant, the carribean hot pepper plant (off of which I recently picked and cooked one of its firey fruits), and the other weird looking plants that I cannot identify, but which are definitely in conversation with one another.

Out back, there is a garage with a wooden garage apartment above it where our neighbor, a poet named Eddie, lives. To the right, there is a fenced off area that the original owners used to keep their dogs in, and now is a small, heavily shaded plot of dirt. I've been using the back corner of the area as a composting site for all of the vegetable waste I generate (which is lots, when you're a vegetarian who actually eats vegetables), but nothing grows in this weird little rectangle of earth, most likely because it is surrounded by pecan trees that drop their inedible nuts all over the place.

Two of the trees that throw shade in the back are in love with each other. I noticed it right away, when we first looked at the apartment before we moved in. They lean into each other, as if the one tree came up behind the other and gave him a hug, or caught him in his arms as he was about to fall backwards. They seem very happy, although I wonder if they might not be jealous of the two other trees, also in love (although not as noticeable to the untrained eye), who have given each other lots of space, but stretch upwards together in a magnificent way, touching only at the top.

The duplex we live in has all kinds of vines on the property, including the scary looking ones that choke the trees and grow along the neighbor's short fence on the east side of the house, as well as the ones I really like -- the fine-looking skinny ones that make a soft lace over the windows out front. In the morning, the sun comes through these vines, bathing the room in a sleepy spring green, and at night, when cars turn around at our dead end, their headlights catch the vines and make the most incredible shadows on the wall. (I know, vines are bad for buildings, but remember we rent, not own, this place.)

When Hank cut down the ropy vine from the east side of the property, he discovered some thriving garlic that out old neighbors must have planted, and I snipped their spicy sprouts and chopped them into the marinade I made for last night's tofu and broccoli stir-fry. Hank broke off a large lavender and pink flower and its circular jade green petals from the cluster of wild looking overgrowth near the pomegranate tree. It looks really groovy in this brown glass vase I have.

I recently explained to a new mother that I believed that when plants feel threatened, they grow fruit as one last ditch effort to somehow survive, which, to my mind, would explain the pomegranate -- the vine was choking it so the tree had to make fruit before it went to seed. I thought this was common knowledge (and I don't know if it really is true), but the new mother seemed surprised, and then took a long look at her beautiful baby girl.