IN A PEAR TREE
By Lydia A. Cyrus 

She grew pears instead of apples, my aunt did. Four medium height pear trees beside a creek bed. Except, no one ate pears in our family, so they would fall off the branches rotten with readiness. They were green and brown, soft and sweet smelling. As children we would walk, holding someone’s hand. The youngest of us would be in a plastic red wagon, rolling through knee high grass. We admired the leaves of sycamore trees and the tuffs of milkweed plants as they all blew away. But you can’t make a pie out of pears. So the fruit of nature’s labor would roll into the grass and decompose but before that they would find their way into the wagon, into our hands. Leaving our hands sticky with something we had no intention of taking home.

About the Author:

Lydia A. Cyrus is a creative nonfiction writer and poet living in Southern Appalachia where she focuses on volunteering and education. She is a proud Mountain Woman who hails from the Western most county of West Virginia.