Royal Anne

ROYAL ANNE
By Kate Chamberlin
Royal Anne was an amazing friend. Each Mother’s Day she honored me with her beauty. Sometimes she had only one early bloom while other years she managed to hang onto the very last one. In full bloom, she was like an ocean of undulating popcorn balls bobbing on the warm, gentle breezes. The tiny, white blossoms that made up each popcorn ball could be examined intimately from the dining room window of our home.
Her emerging light green leaves seemed to push the petals off, making a white flannel sheet cover the ground. Her saw-toothed edged leaves turned a mature, dark green as the cherry pips began to swell. At this stage of her cycle, my children were not allowed to climb into her heights for fear of knocking off the fruit. As her Mid-wife, I sprayed only organic solutions on her to protect her fruit.
Usually by the Fourth of July, the cherries are ready to pick. The children swarmup into her embrace with small, plastic buckets tied to their belts. A plunk of one cherry into the bucket can be heard. Then, the tippy tap of a cleaned pit falling from leaf to leaf to the ground can be heard. During the first week of picking, the children put as much into their stomachs as they do into their buckets. The second week, the freezer gets its due for future use.
The fruit left on the tree begins to ferment. The Robins can hold their wine but the drunken bees’ flight is quite erratic and loggie.
By late summer, Nature has composted the fruit, petals, and pits into the grass under the canopy. She patiently shades us as we lounge beneath her boughs during the steamy, sultry dog days of August.
As summer cools into fall, her leaves turn yellow and red with brown tips. Soon the brown consumes the leaves. They become brittle and crunch together when the north wind gusts. One evening she’ll go into the night wearing a well coiffured brown wig and wake up with only a snarled, tangled mass silhouetted against the bleak, grey morning sky.
The fresh caps of snow along each branch and twig are beautiful winter sights. The quick, undulating flight of the Nut-hatch is easy to spot as it comes in from the back hedge-row to her welcoming embrace. A little patch of snow is knocked off as helands. The snow bomb narrowly misses the sparrow who is waitingto go to the feeder a few feet away.
The Cherry red Cardinal happily chooses his favorite sun flower seeds at the base of the feeder poll until the raucous Blue Jay butts- in front of everyone. Quickly the Cardinal flies into the safety of the Cherry tree until the Jay is gone. A fresh selection of seed is now scattered on the patio.
The snow at Royal Anne’s feet is covered with bird, rabbit, and children’s foot prints. When the snow begins to melt in the late winter, only the children’s compacted foot prints are remindersof the many creatures who enjoyed the snow activities in her company.
She trembled down to the very bottom of her roots when her fate had been sealed. Her spot was needed for a new bedroom wing. The day she was cut down was sad and not soon to be forgotten. As she quietly swooshed to the ground, her stump oozed crimson sap, as is she were bleeding profusely from the fatal wound.
In time, she will become the newel post for the spiral staircase in the new wing of our home. My friend the Royal Anne cherry tree will still be an integral part of my life.
NOTE:This first appeared in the weekly column Cornucopia by Kate Chamberlin, April 27 and May 04, 1995, Wayne County Star Newspaper.