Listen To The Pear Tree, Bambino.

It was always the same routine each day. He would walk the cobbled streets with his birch twig, swinging it back and forth with his cadence. With each swing of his leg, out came the twig, like a metronome keeping time with his walk. He couldn’t quite remember how he started this peculiar habit, but thought it was probably around the time Nonna taught him of tree spirits.

He remembered the day fondly. “Ascolti, Vito. Listen,” she would say.

“What, Nonna?”

“Shh.” She would always bring her outstretched pointer finger and balled fist to her mouth, lips pursed, to drive her point home. Listening was important business.

“Don’t you hear?”

The wind would whistle through the trees and the grass would softly rustle around their feet. Aside from the errant bird above, it was silence.

“I hear nothing, Nonna,” he would reply.

“It is because you haven’t heard how to listen, my dear.”

He must have heard this same message a million times. But he had never really listened until he no longer had the luxury of listening to his Nonna share it again.

“Each tree has a spirit, Vito.” “Each blade of grass, each root beneath the ground, each drop of dew on a flower has their own unique story to tell. You must learn how to listen.”

This was such a foreign concept to the bambino. Il panettiere always had stories to tell about his days in the kitchen, and Padre always shared his words with crowds amongst clouds of incense, but the thought that things without mouths could speak was nonsensical to young Vito.

“You start with learning their proper names.” “This, my love, is Betula pendula. It is the silver birch tree.”

She pointed to the nearby tree with its slender trunk and jagged leaves.

He thought Betula pendula sounded like “pendulum”, and so this is how he remembered. He swung its branch to and fro like a clock marks the moments, a subtle reminder of the passage of the time throughout the years.

“If you listen closely, you will learn all of the secrets of the land.” “They are here to share the wisdom of our ancestors.” “In return for your quiet patience, you will be gifted with shade, medicine, food, and fresh air to fill your lungs.” “Do not take this for granted,” she finished sternly.

Nonna was a kind woman, but one could always tell when she meant to get her point across. Her brow would furrow slightly, and her eyes would narrow sharply until she was certain her message was heard.

“If the spirits are so generous, how do we give thanks?”

Even in his youth, Vito’s precociousness never ceased to amaze.

Her gaze softened and a familiar dimple marked the corners of her mouth. “With growth, my dear.” “Come.”

Nonna reached her hand into the pockets of her blue linen dress and revealed a handful of seeds.

“We grow.”

She knelt downwards and scooped a handful of Earth into her hands, leaving a shallow hole in the ground. “Plant these, mi amor, and you can hear their first words.” “Within these small seeds holds the potential of a pear tree.” “You can hear it if you only listen.”

Vito scattered the seeds in the small plot and lay the soil atop them. “Don’t we need to water them, Nonna?” Vito asked.

She gazed deep into his eyes and smiled before shedding a single tear onto the ground below.

“This will be enough.” “For now, we wait.”

Sunsets turned to sunrise, and crescent moons turned to wax as the years passed. With each one, the pear tree slowly grew.

Vito sat beneath the shade of the tree. It was Nonna’s final resting place, and her fragrance perfumed the air and the blossoms above. A pear fell into his lap. He finally learned how to listen.