The Plum Tree

Tu ne quaesieris …

The plum tree’s dying branch by branch,
A candelabra going dark.
Leaves ticket down, no avalanche,
A gangrene inches through the bark.

Fruit trees are short-lived. So we’d heard.
For years we thought its time had come;
Yet each spring bridal blossoms stirred
And each year purpled into plum.

One summertime will be its last –
I think it’s this one. You do too.
It happened gradually, then fast,
As bankruptcy is said to do.

Yet look, here is a last hurrah –
A meager harvest of late fruits,
Some hanging on dead boughs. What law
Of time and ripeness in cahoots

Offers this unlooked-for haul?
Let’s gather it, though posthumous;
And if the final count is small,
The sweeter is the sum to us,

And we can pray, just as before,
For signs (should we consult them) that
Our plum tree has one summer more,
This now, ever penultimate.