For a Cherry Tree

Photo by Pedro Sanz on Unsplash

I cut off my own hands for the promise of a cherry tree. My father never taught us better, and my mother– she was so deep in worry, keeping the world turning like the stream under a great millstone, I didn’t want to ask her advice, lest I end up like her.

I cried and cried, and then I crossed my arms over my chest and went out into the world. I met a man with a crown of golden curls who said the future belonged to him, and he described such palaces and glittering cities and victorious battles– and he said, yes, we’ll plant those cherry trees. Yes, we can begin with nothing more than the hard pit and a bit of soft earth. 

Did he give me hands, and were they made of silver, or were they simple, useful wood and did I carve them for myself, first one, crude, a tool to hold the knife, and then another, working left to right until the green wood fitted to my skin?

Kingdoms rose and fell. My orchard grew. Did it bear fruit because of our grand plans, or simply because buds long to burst to flower, and flowers to ripen into fruit? I ripened and became a mother. I lost interest in my husband’s wars. When the orchards were still producing, when the children could each hold a wooden hand, I banished myself.

A cabin in the woods.

Tears and tears that soaked my wooden hands, that made the hardwood soft again, that made it awaken, bud, turn green. I grew into my hands, I grew into a tree. And now the scent of cherry blossoms fills the forest, wafts soft pink-and-white like snow upon the ground.

I traded it all for a cherry tree, and look what I’ve become.

---

I've been writing new fairytales lately, but this piece isn't quite that. It's a layering of a story that has been speaking to me for a long time, "The Handless Maiden," and my own feelings about marriage, divorce, and identity.