The Lemon Trees Grow — As Long As

And as long as the lemon trees grow, we are not yet finished.

So let them come with their maps and their keys. Let them count the dead in columns. We have something they cannot calculate. We have the grove. We have the blossom. We have the patience of roots splitting stone. As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow

Because as long as the lemon trees grow—crooked, unyielding, bursting with acid gold—there is a tomorrow. There is a table to set. There is a fruit so sour it makes you pucker, makes your eyes water, makes you feel the raw, impossible fact of being alive. And as long as the lemon trees grow, we are not yet finished

We are like that now. Not the fruit, but the rind. The bitter, essential part. At dawn, when the drones retreat and the sky turns the color of lemon flesh, my grandmother still slices them thin. She salts them in a clay pot the way her grandmother did. “For the day we feast,” she says. And though the bread is scarce and the water tastes of rust, I believe her. We have something they cannot calculate