Passing of the Purple Plum

Posted on August 5, 2010 in Neighborhood

Long time readers of this blog remember my long antagonism with the tree in front of my condo, the dreadful purple plum. The tree savagely bore down on my head when I passed on the sidewalk and obstructed my view from the deck ever since we moved in 1999. No edible fruit grew on it. It splattered the concrete with its progeny. On the other hand, it brought me moments of profound intensity:

Tonight, beneath the white blossoms of a purple plum tree and an electric lamp which hummed away the silence, I stood. Not a very interesting story to tell, but the moment was thick with the immediate presence of the night and the white corners of the condos.

It never did well due to its place in the shadows. But this season the plum had been struggling. No flowers sprang from its branches. Only a few deeply colored leaves stuck to its whiplike branches. Where its confederates flourished, my nemesis exuded mere weak fingernails of life.

Yesterday when I went out to take Doggy to the park, I hurried along the sidewalk. Turning my eyes to the left to set my eyes for a second on the leaden grayness of the familiar trunk, I noticed an absence reaching down to a medallion of sawdust at my feet. The gardeners had taken down the purple plum. The object of my mocking interest had been cut down.