Buds tight like tiny fists, ready to unfurl into delicate, pink blossoms. The air is yet to be thick with their fragrance, for winter still embraces its branches with the heaviness of snow.
Soon, clouds of flowers will spring to life on these branches, and sunlight will filter through their thick canopy. It'll bloom just for a short while, but in its beauty it will sing praises to spring.
The first plum, warm and ripe, its nectar dripping from the stem onto the earth, it will fall from its heavy weight and lie upon the ground, awaiting to be eaten by an eager bird.
And before long, it too will pass, and burn in the quiet fire of leaves that flash ablaze with crimson and ochre. Summer will follow spring, and autumn will follow summer. No matter how stubbornly the fruit will clutch onto the branches, the cold winds will eventually gather them.
Another year will pass, another winter will come. With it a frozen sky, the stripped limbs of the tree exposed, and on them will flash a ribbon, now brown and forgotten, but once red like the lips of a maiden in love, smudged a little from a long kiss.
It is a whispered promise, a knot they tied around its highest branch. For eternity the plum is standing, keeping this secret between a tree, a maiden, and her love.
