Background: A very heavy rain fell in the town my family lives and thunder struck my mum's precious lemon/bergamot tree.
The rain was heavy, the ground too soft,
and the old tree bowed until it broke.
Its fall was not thunder, not omen,
but a sigh, as if it remembered
my father’s leaving.
I saw my mother’s sorrow in the silence,
as though another piece of him
had been taken.
I told her the breaking was not curse
but release,
a door shut to frustrate the shadows
that once gathered near.
Still, its roots run deep in my mind,
holding the scent of sunlit fruit,
lemons bright against green.
Its branches were never tall,
but they reached far enough
to season our days with light.
Even in falling, it teaches
how small things endure,
how memory, like citrus,
keeps its sharp sweetness.
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