Melinda Tree Quotes

Afraid that my head might burst through the roof, I head for the mall. I have ten bucks in my pocket—what to spend it on? French fries—ten bucks’ worth of french fries, ultimate fantasy.

The water rippled when he leaned in; he studied what he saw. Against a background of blue sky, there was his face, broad of forehead and overly long, and he was surprised at the new look of age on him. To everybody else, I must look ten years beyond twenty-seven, he thought, and it made him glad. Even had begun to fear gaps and what they might mean. Wide-spanning spaces between age and its weight of language and ability had begun to feel like easy reasons for saying good-bye. He saw inside the calm reflection a gull flying low over his head, braced by clouds drifting east toward Runnelstown. Turning back, he walked north around moss-based trees and finally found her digging wild onions growing thick next to fern. With her back to him she said, "Tired does one of two things-either builds the soul or breaks the heart. Can't decide which it is right now. All I know is I'm tired.

I head for my closet after school. I want to take the poster of Maya Angelou home, and I’d like to keep some of my tree pictures and my turkey-bone sculpture. The rest of the stuff can stay, so long as it doesn’t have my name on it. Who knows, some other kids may need a safe place to run to next year.

Becoming a young lady is a bit like being a topiary bush. You start out wild and unformed, and highly paid experts snip away at you until you’re beautiful and thoroughly tamed. Only then are you considered proper company. A witch is more like a young willow tree. You may start as a scrawny weed, but every root you send questing through the ground, every shoot you send toward the sun, strengthens you. If you’re not checked, your roots can crack walls.

Mr. Freeman: "Time's up, Melinda. Are you ready?" I hand over the picture. He takes it in his hands and studies it. I sniff again and wipe my eyes on my arm. The bruises are vivid, but they will fade. Mr. Freeman: "No crying in my studio. It ruins the supplies. Salt, you know, saline. Etches like acid." he sits on the stool next to me and hands back my tree. "You get an A+. You worked hard at this." He hands me the box of tissues. "You've been through a lot, haven't you?" The tears dissolve the last block of ice in my throat. I feel the frozen stillness melt down through the inside of me, dripping shards of ice that vanish in a puddle of sunlight on the stained floor. Words float up. Me: "Let me tell you about it.

Mother Nature Shows Us How To Make Great Soil When you walk through the woods, look at the soil under your feet. It’s rich and black, and smells earthy and sweet. Falling leaves have done their work as long as the trees have been there, and burrowing animals and worms have broken down the leaves, mixing them deeper into the ground. All is as it should be. Now look at that poor soil under your trees, and consider the many bags of leaves you’ve dragged to the curb. This year, run the lawn mower over your piles of leaves several times to shred them, then scatter them over your yard, or pile them on a garden you plan to leave fallow for a year. Or compost them. They might take a year or two or three to break down, but leaves make some rich soil, and good mulch. Try it sometime.

There you are,” I said, striving to paddle back to shore from the deep waters I felt I’d somehow wandered into. “Aren’t you going to waltz me? Listen, they’re starting.” He opened his eyes at that. “I know,” he said. “I can hear. God, I can hear it. How do you humans bear it?” The waltz had started slowly, and he thumped his hand against his chest in time. One-two-three, one-two-three. “Bear what?” I said softly. “The music,” he said. “A man in Austria wrote this—just a man, just a stinking, selfish, distractible human—scratched it out on tree pulp, and then it traveled across countries and through wars and arrived here, and though none of us speak his language and most don’t know his name, he speaks to us exactly as he intended to. He tells our bodies how to move to it almost without learning the steps. One-two-three, one-two-three.” A smile flitted across his lips. I was astonished to see that he had tears in his eyes. “God! How beautiful it is! And you all talk over it about what Lady-So-and-So said to the Honorable Whosit yesterday on the Steyne.

I dare you to tell me you can do better,” he says. “Try as I might,” she says, “can’t fault your hanging.” He gasps and clutches his heart. She laughs, and then stifles, as if caught, and this is the crack of the first tree falling.

Snow came and went, a promise and a lie, and the turned trees lose their finest gold and yellow leaves to the wind. The scrape of moose antlers on branches and the rustle of willow shrub, the rut, and the bulls in a fight over the cows, the hollow racket of antler thrown against antler, the echo through the low. -Homestead by Melinda Moustakis

She felt ugly and unwanted, like a balding geriatric poodle out for a stroll, the leash held in the hand of someone who didn't really care about the dog, who had never even liked it in the first place, who probably couldn't wait until it was buried in the backyard underneath the magnolia tree.