Many months ago I mused about my love for pomegranates. I wrote: “…And if you know me, I’ve tumbled across many a punica granatum. I hunt them out. I track them down. And I sit, and admire the red fruit from the car; it’s the thing that most tempts me toward thievery.”
So, wouldn’t you know, that very thing–thievery–has come to strike my own tree, my own yard… Thieves have been about, and I’m not happy. Though I have thought about taking someone else’s fruit–yes, thought… I have never actually reached out and plucked.
But the story gets more sad and dreadful. Our beloved pomegranate tree is dying a slow but, it seems, inevitable death…
My husband and I have been using all our horticultural intellect to try to figure out the cause of this sad happening… The pomegranate tree (my favorite of all childhood fruits) a tree that was a birthday present many years ago from my parents–is just about at the branch-brittle stage. All summer we’ve watched our tree turn from green and lush
to weak and woeful…
Throughout this slow process of dying, the tree somehow managed to keep on its limbs about six pomegranates. We’ve picked one off a branch that was obviously dead, and were just about to pick two very round and gorgeous fruit that had fully ripened, but…
We returned from a long afternoon away, and the fruit was gone.
What sadness! Not only for the loss of the fruit, maybe the last fruit we would pick from that beloved tree, but sadness for the person who reached high into the branches, snitched the fruit, and tiptoed away.
What I’d really like to do is bake a nice loaf of sourdough for this person… They must need a friendly neighbor, a little dose of love, and I’d like to be someone who reaches out… Last Sunday in church, our pastor exhorted us to keep a peaceful heart–to hold captive any thoughts that enter your mind that might disturb the peace we so desperately need. “Hold those thoughts captive, and reject them!” I don’t want to think unhappy thoughts about you, my thief… So, if you swiped my pomegranates, and are reading this, leave a note on my porch, designate a time and place for the bread drop off, and I’ll bake for you.
Really. I will.
The Woman and the Wheat 
That is utterly sad!! The before and after pics of the tree with the one lonely pomegranate on it also looks so sad.
You are amazing Jane to have thoughts of wanting to bake for the thief! What an amazing Christ like example of turning the other cheek!
Are you sure the thief was human? I don’t know what sort of wildlife you have in your area…..:-)
But I like your idea of baking them, whoever it was, a loaf of bread….
Matushka! We have opossums, raccoons, skunks, turkeys (well, we only saw that wild turkey once…) crows, hawks, parrots, and I suppose the random coyote…
A neighbor came by the other day and said that her daughter’s first-grade teacher had not only the pomegranates stolen from her front yard tree, but they dug up the entire tree and carted it away.
I know pomegranates are popular, and expensive, but REALLY!!!
I almost wish I was the thief, just to get some molasses bread! But alas (alasses!) I am not.
When mine ripen, I will invite you over to pick your own. You can play with your beautiful godbaby if you determine they are not quite ready to be picked….
Pooh to that mean ole thief!
Alasses! I will bring you bread and we can all eat a few of your pomegranate seeds in honor of…
thieves!
non-thieves!
godbabies!
bakers!
catechists!
authors!
Greek dancers!
and…
Positively, your thief, just maybe, thought they were saving that beloved fruit from inevitable death! Imagine a visitor (one that does not know you the way we do, of course!), taking a walk and seeing that poor neglected fruit (we know the truth), and knowing that if they don’t save it……well, they’ve gone home now, they probably shared the fruit with their hosts and hopefully, enjoyed every last juicy drop. So, they are long gone Jane, you bake that bread and STAY STRONG!
How tender and precious. I love your heart and can’t wait to meet you.
Valerie and Melissa have come to our Simple Farm and dug and planted seeds and have told me about you. They say you’re coming to the valley…and I’m delightfully so looking forward to meeting you.
On another note….my husband’s brother lives in SB.
Blessings on you….Lylah
Lylah–we’ll be in AZ in March and I just can’t wait to come and visit your farm! We can speak in French about goats (I love goats, and have incorporated them into a middle grade novel I’m writing… :)) and have you ever been to Moustiers Ste Marie in Provence? They sell a lot of pottery there and the whole town is built into a hillside with waterfalls flowing through the center. Enchanting!!!
Matthew 5:38-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
The stealing of your fruit is such a sad tale on top of the even bigger sadness of the slow dying of your tree, which I have witnessed from week to week as I drop your kids off from school.
May God bless you with a new, vigorous and extremely prolific new pomegranate tree (maybe this time in the back yard?).
xoxo, Carla