Percy’s Orchard Parable – 133

Dear Companions of the Villa,

Claire has fed us bread, Byron has tempted us with love, and Mary has held the hourglass to our gaze. Permit me, then, to walk among trees.

An orchard is never for the planter alone. The apple tree set down today may not bear its sweetest fruit until the planter’s children are old enough to climb its branches. To plant is an act of faith in timing — too late, and no one will taste its shade; too hasty, and the sapling withers before its roots find depth.

Abundance, I think, is much the same. It cannot be conjured like a play written overnight, nor can it wait forever like an unspoken poem. It requires the patience of orchards: to know that plenty comes not in an instant, but in a season, and that season must be kept from both frost and drought.

Yet here lies the danger. If we starve while waiting, who among us will bother planting? If we grow reckless and demand fruit tomorrow, we may kill the very tree that might have fed us. Thus the gauntlet, as Molly calls it, is not only the perils of science but the weariness of time. We must endure long enough to taste the harvest, or all our dreaming will prove barren.

So let us plant, and let us guard — not for ourselves alone, but for those whose laughter will one day echo in the branches.

— Percy