Blossoms Besotted

The wisteria tree nestled into the western shade of a grove left long untended, was laden heavily with the works of spring, ripened during those fine, clear and warmly spent hours beneath promising blue skies the season used dotingly, lavishly, lovingly.

Where once hands had pressed themselves to the wisteria bark, plucked at the flowers and pruned, their absence had paved way for nature to take up the task and play. The bountiful buds of wisteria were richly purple, gradients from dark to light, lavender to heather, to that familiar fading purple farewell in the skies that stars as prelude to dusk.

Opposite the grove, where she had been untidily sown years prior by the droppings of a robin in fall, an apple tree with ashen brown bark stood bared to the sunlight. Her blossoms, white-petaled and lined with blush were lifted in the spring breeze, and with them their sweet scents and promise of fruit to come, floating freely into forever. How long those deliciously subtle notes would fly she could never know, but she felt at peace in the knowledge that her sweetness could be shared and that her beauty could be admired, longed for, wistfully from afar.

Over the passing of years, since humanity had withdrawn and elfin presence within the region had resolved to leave time to heal the grove, the trees of the forest had crowded in. Pine, fir, redwood and hemlock, even a willow, thin and young.

Where once there had been stone pathways, grass grew thickly between their ridges and roughed them. Wildflowers bloomed where they could take an inch and the insects sang their victory songs each night pressing their chests against the stems of the coloured blooms. The birds had come back in force, though respectfully; they took no more than they needed and left behind what they must, and once every few weeks when so brave as to do so, a velveted buck or a tawny-furred doe might tread through and tug up a mouthful of sweetgrass to chew.

Once every month, when the moon was but a sliver and her light was elsewhere, and the tides of oceans were pulling from the shore, the forest was allowed to shed their skins and glory in the absence of her shine. The moon couldn’t possibly know they wouldn’t harm any creature, but her light pained them, burned them.

And so it was that when she the moon was looking the other way, the dryads would come out and play.

The wisteria dryad was the first to slip from her bark one evening. Fireflies who sympathized for the beings who protected their groves, came to light the space, curling up into the fronds of flowers and filling their cups with their glow. Wist was sepia-skinned and glossy, vines twining down past her shoulders and flowing free. She reached upward and extended her limbs in a much needed stretch, curling her toes into the earth and inhaling deeply the air of an ending day.

Her honey warm gaze longingly sought out the apple tree.

The apple tree took longer to pull herself into shape, so content she had been with the day that reluctance had lingered. Yet, a stirring much deeper than her hesitation called more strongly than her reluctance, and she soon materialized from her bark. Them which she stood on could not quite be called feet, for they were yet still rooted and viny, but they did the job nonetheless. She adorned herself in a garland of her fallen blossoms, wreathed herself in their perfume and smiled. She had a pretty smile, with lips and cheeks red as her apples. Once she had materialized proper, she rounded to look upon her lady love and blushed bright at the sight of her Wist. At once, reluctance quite forgotten, she sprang down the grassy lane with a tinkling laugh and threw herself into the other’s wide open arms.

The glow from the fireflies blushed to behold them; these besotted blooms clustered closely. Their embrace was long and to be longed for.

There was no speech to be found in such beings. Instead, their emotions coursed strongly through their roots underground, pulsed their excitement. Nearby crickets swooned. Wist drew back from the apple dryad. She took one viny hand in her own and together they walked through the light of the fireflies, delighting in their warmth and glow.

Could it have been a mere month? The waning winter had taken its time to withdraw, and the threat of a last frost was not yet gone. Such cold days when the skies were misted over with grey made time itself feel frozen and never to return to normal again. But, victoriously, the month had come and gone, and all souls could be near again.

There is no word for love in the language of the trees. There is only the knowing. The roots of hemlock, fir, pine and arbutus dryads thrummed with life as each who had pulled from its bark lived their night.

Memories passed from root to root. Beneath the grass, a question formed. How fared the wound of the storm? The apple dryad's wooden face crinkled and she turned at first to gesticulate, but thought better of it and led her Wisteria to where she wanted her.

A deep groove curved into the apple bark, its edges singed and black. Shock radiated through Wist's very core. During a February storm, lightning had cascaded upon the forest, lighting the sky neon and crashing into the earth with its force. The apple dryad had been one of those struck and, from where Wist was rooted, all had looked fine apart from the smoke after the clouds had cleared and the skies turned bright again.

Great globs of sap were soaking through the wound. It was jagged, zigzagged quite like the lightning that had hit her. The apple dryad smiled grimly. The pain had been like nothing she had felt before. It affected her now - though, Wist couldn't see it, and the apple dryad wouldn't have allowed her to. Beneath the garland of blossoms she wore, the apple tree bore further scars to the soul, to the root. She was changed. But to know that her love was safe was all she needed, and perhaps time would heal her as it did all things. The very forest around them was proof of that. The apple dryad would bury her hopes in that garden.

Wist trailed a thin, branched finger over the sap. She didn't need to ask if it hurt. She only knew that she must have been so, intimately lucky to be able to hold her love close. And so she did. The thought of flames engulfing the apple tree threatened an aching pang to her chest. She brought the apple dryad close to it instead and breathed in her scent.

Brought to a strange, sober awareness of the present moment and the clarity that shock and the threat of loss brings, the dryads strode the overgrown walkways hand in hand and visited friends young and old. The slender willow dryad was bent over a brook, her long fronds trailing in its ripples, and she smiled to behold the pair. There was no weeping to be found in her.

The evening passed with the sense of feeling as short as it had felt long. Those once a moon visits were never enough to share the fullness of one's experience, ones thoughts, but the dryads took what they could - and gratefully.

As dawn began to roll her carpet of mist across the forest floor, each dryad began to retire back to their trees. The lovers took their time, stalling, as though hoping each second could be forced to extend. Wisteria clasped the apple dryad's face in her hands and the eyes looked long and deeply. The whisper of the morning wind through the trees laced the air with their fragrances, and before the sun could peek above the horizon, they kissed. Their roots above earth were separated, but below they would never be far.

By the time morning had come, birdsong filled the air. Sunlight warmed the forest floor, the branches, the earth, the stones.

An apple and wisteria tree stood apart where they were rooted. As the streams of wind played and giggled, they came across a garland of blossoms woven into a wisteria vine, and purple petals sprinkled into the healing sap of the apple tree.