Curtain Call

It's not a wild sylvan scene, but it is the glorious autumn's curtain call, as the last straggling performer lingers late on stage. All the other actors have long since cast off their costumes, but the genetically altered pear tree is still decked in full regalia, attracting all the attention it can never receive when the larger, brighter native trees are in color.

You go, Mutant Pear Tree! Poor, emasculated, overly-refined, decorative treeling. You're an evolutionary dead end, and you'll never reproduce of your own power because your empoisoned fruit never gets any bigger than a pencil eraser. Sad, stunted little species whose whole lot in history is to grace boxy postage-stamp lawns like this one behind "The Manse." What overly domesticated, professional man fails to feel your pain? We love our troublesome children and spouses; we identify with our life's work, yes, but which of us on a bright fall day doesn't feel the primal urge to rip off the damned necktie...or collar? Which of us is deaf to the wild call of rocks, and streams, and wind, and dirt? But we have to ignore it, or relegate it to tiny blocks of preplanned "free time." We resign ourselves instead...to tameness, stability, responsibility, respectability. We give our life's energies instead to deadlines, and productivity, and institutional advancement.

Ah, the wildness we long for would kill us anyway. And right quickly! So, you go, Mutant Pear Tree! You'd never survive in the forest, but you sure are nice to look at in mid-November.