Eight years have passed
Since I placed my cherry seed in the grass.
“Must have a tree of my own,” I said,
And watered it once and went to bed
And forgot; but cherries have a way of growing,
Though no one's caring very much or knowing.
And suddenly that summer near the end of May,
I found a tree had come to stay.
It was very small, five months child,
Lost in the tall grass running wild.
Goats ate the leaves, the grass cutter scythe
Split it apart and a monsoon blight
Shrivelled the slender stem...... Even so,
Next spring I watched three new shoots grow,
The young tree struggle, upward thrust
Its arms in a fresh fierce lust
For light and air and sun.
I could only wait, as one
Who watched, wandering, while Time and the rain
Made a miracle from green growing pain.......
I went away next year-
Spent a season in Kashmir-
Came back thinner, rather poor,
But richer by a cherry tree at my door.
Six feet high my own dark cherry,
And I could scarcely believe it-a berry.
Ripened and jeweled in the sun,
Hung from a branch-just one!
And next year there were blossoms small
Pink, fragile, quick to fall
At the merest breath, the sleepiest breeze. .....
I lay on the grass, at ease,
Looking up through leaves at the blue
Blind sky, at the finches as they flew
And flitted through the dappled green.
While bees in an ecstasy drank
Of nectar from each bloom and the sun sank
Swiftly, and the stars turned in the sky,
And moon-moths and singing crickets and l
Yes, I! — praised Night and Stars and tree:
That small, the cherry, grown by me.....
Introduction...The poet Ruskin Bond belongs to India. He considered himself richer having a cherry tree at his door. He felt proud for planting his own tree. The title of the poem is related to the central character i.e., a cherry tree whose journey from planting to upward growth to the blossomed tree is given. The poem deals with the poet’s feeling of great joy over a tree that he planted and took eight years to grow.
The poem talks about nature; thus, it falls under the category of nature poetry. The tone used is optimism which means that the poet focuses on the growing aspect of nature and how the cherry plant struggles to survive. The poem is realistic as it describes the everyday struggle of a plant to mature into a blooming tree.
