Elegy for the dried bonsai on my balcony
14/30, #NaPoWriMo2021, from a prompt by Jihyun Yun for Wild and Precious Life: Write an elegy for something you have killed.
I had
always been
alarmed by the
cruelty of the parable of
the fig tree. But someone else had
cursed you before you got to me on a
tray, unwoven and pruned your roots, stunted
you for the T & T Supermarket I bought you in. In
the stories, people tend trees as proxies for life. I did try.
To cultivate life, that is. See if it could survive outside of myself,
and therefore, within. My dear experiment. I could never water you
enough, or little enough. I had no secateurs like the ones the nursery
you came from broke your fingers with. I gave you bushels of your own
leaves for a blanket. I thought I’d share my coffee
grounds
with you.
I wondered
about liquid
fertilizer, for-
got to buy the
food prescribed
for your constricted
throat. I thought the
remains of the coastal
day in the centre of the
house could nourish you
enough. I thought the critical care of sun, light on the balcony, would revive you.
But it was winter, and already too late.Did I place you, or abandon you out there?
Did I think the rain would do my work? Did I think matches of falling stars would
give you nitrogen? Did I think you would fade into the light pool out back? Why do people plant children? I only know that once, you were the answer. I used you
to replant my salted earth. Others had powerfully-limited kids, struggling under droughts of sun, contorted in their reaching for light, deceived and then frozen
in out-reach, their tenders having cut down sprouts of will. I wanted the same for
you, and I should say, me. Dead ficus, can I blame you for not bearing leaves? I have not let you rest. A conspiracy of algae is covering your roots, or cradling them. I’d
questioned my own joy when I got you: was broken or finally whole? Was I? Am I?¶
© Tolu Oloruntoba
Note on image:
Funeral Ritual in a Garden, Tomb of Minnakht | A.D. 1921; original ca. 1479–1425 B.C. | Twentieth Century; original New Kingdom | Charles K. Wilkinson | On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 135 | Image is in public domain