Day 1193, Our Fig Tree 

 

Our fig tree doesn’t know there’s a pandemic in the land,

Its leaves the richest green of any year.

The figs are popping out but now they’re still too firm to pick.

And they might be the best we’ve ever had.

 

My wife’s grandparents, Max and Frieda, fled the Holocaust

And came to Hollywood with other Jews.

When Noah had survived the Flood, he planted vines for grapes.

And Max and Frieda planted a fig tree.

 

Their daughter, Eva married, took a shoot to her new home.

And when they moved, she took another shoot.

Their daughter, Carol, married me; they gave us one more shoot.

The next shoot grows at our son, Daniel’s home.

 

This year our tree appears to be the best it’s ever been.

This morning I went out to squeeze the figs,

And right at my eye level, on two perfectly shaped leaves,

I saw two snails; how did they climb up there?

 

Every year we get some Japanese beetles on the figs.

They don’t arrive until the crop is ripe.

Then Carol said, “I didn’t tell you, I saw one last week.

Three snails, one unreported, until now.

 

Both snails and beetles on our fig tree a few months from now?

Right now, the tree looks perfect, the best I’ve ever seen.