It bears fruit now
It is Sunday morning, I have sent my daughter to the swimming pool. She is learning swimming these days. Neither my husband nor I can swimming well. So everyday when she comes back from her training there, we will have to sit and listen to her bragging about how well she can swim for almost half an hour, sometimes longer. And we have to show our admiration properly though inwardly both of us might be grinning. And now, we have the whole morning to ourselves. We rarely have such a time these days. My husband is humming to himself in the next room, with a book in his hand, while I have to water my plants before I get to other business at all. When I reached the pomegranate, I stopped. I watched the small, green pomegranate fruit with uncontrollable joy and surprise.
I was born in lunar May. It is said that each month is marked by a special kind of flower, and pomegranate is the flower of May. So I went out of my way to search for this potted pomegranate last spring. It was very small then, very tender and delicate. The old kind gardener told me that I had to be very patient, pomegranate usually grows not so fast, and the florescence is not very long, so it will pass out of bloom in just a couple of weeks. What’s more, it will not bear any fruit at all, because it belongs to “herbaceous”, he told me. The flowers will just fall down. He kindly recommended me other flowers and plants he had. But I still bought the pomegranate. It is the flower of May, the month I was born, isn’t it? I wanted it.
From the day I put it on my balcony, it took my home as her home almost immediately. It stood on the shelf with several other plants, so carefree, fresh and green, delicate and pretty, clean but not aloof.
This year it surely has grown larger, with more and darker green leaves. During the past two or three weeks, my pomegranate was showing its best. There were more buds and blooming flowers. The small bright red flowers hid among the green leaves, like stars in a dark blue sky. Not strikingly beautiful, but still very touching. I used to stand and watch it for a long while, feeling so amazed by the two strongly contrasting colors , they set off each other so perfectly. Just as the gardener told me when I got it , it only bloomed for no more than a month, and there is only one bud and no flowers on it now. But, my dear small pomegranate does give me something better in return for my care. There is a small fruit hanging on the top spray, about the size of a groundnut already. I have noticed it for several days, but every night when I water it I keep wondering whether it will still be there the second morning. I once had the slightest fancy that it might someday bear fruits, I laughed at myself each time when I cleaned the withered flowers and leaves for it. Well, nature has its rules, how can I dream of the impossible?
But it is still there, getting bigger with each day past. So, who said that everything is possible before it is impossible? How right and wise he was!
Full of happiness, I called out to my hubby, asking him to come and share this joy, like we share everything in our life.
