The Tree and The Moth

The old tailor was the old tailor for as long as anyone knew him. His shop was never empty.

He lived in his shop. It was a soft, warm little wooden place a short footpath from the street corner. The window shades looked almost like wicker. A bench sat next to a pot of flowers under the front window. The roof was a gnarled texture, like the walls stopped and the shop kept going up.

The tailor marked the seasons with clothes. Spring. New hems on skirts and shorts. A trimmed beard. End of summer. A rush of children with torn, muddy school uniforms. Tightened glasses. Fall. Refitting dress pants. Aching hands from raking the fallen leaves. Winter. Jackets, too-tight boots and his echoing voice that urged neighbors out of the cold.

A sewing machine tapped in the corner. Yards of fabric sat in tight bundles on big, open shelves along every wall. The lamp at the register glowed day and night from the shop window.

When the old tailor’s heart puttered out at the end of a winter, everyone in town knew it. There wasn’t any light from the window.

The store emptied out some time later. Yards of fabric, boots, tools, soft leather templates were sold at discount. Pots of flowers were tossed out. A bed and small desk were given away. Doors were boarded up. Keys were repossessed. The work is gone.

Everything except the mulberry tree growing in the cellar.

It’s an old mulberry tree that stands where a corner of the shop’s walls should meet. The tree is wider than outstretched arms, so much taller than the ceiling. Inside and out. Alive.

The old tailor had known it for a long time.

He examined it. He poked and prodded and tapped.

He took out his tape to wrap as much as he could around the tree, at least to estimate an age. Too many digits.

He took a hatchet to one of the branches, and the blade chipped apart.

He gave the tree water and fresh soil a few times each year when the snow melted. He dried and stretched pulp from the loose bark into sheets of paper. He made mulberry syrup when the berries bloomed. He gathered silk and hung some coats on the tree like a rack.

A few coats full of holes and cords of silk still hung on the branches. Some of the leaves poked between the ceiling beams into the back room of the store. Dark red berries sat scattered between the leaves. Even when everything is gone, not everything is gone.

The pipe overhead could leak a few drops of water each hour. There was enough water to reach the roots under the floorboards. At least enough for green leaves and plenty of berries. The windows weren’t big, but they offered some sunlight on the earliest spring mornings.

A room. A great big tree. Drooping coats. Silk threads.

And then, a hint of movement in the leaves. Alive.

The littlest silkworm, the only one on the tree, is hard at work again.

The silkworm traces its own path through the tree. It pokes and prods and taps each branch. It pauses sometimes for a nibble on a few shriveling leaves and wilting twigs. It leaves silk strands behind each step it takes. The strands crisscross the tree, all the way down to the roots.

A coat droops from its branch. It shifts and rips. One sleeve snags on the tree bark.

The silkworm climbs onto the coat. It stitches line after line of thread back onto the tear, enough for the day.

One or two flowers open from a twig.

The moth, the only one on the tree, rests above the silkworm with a quiet snore.

When the sun sets, the silkworm slows down along its path.

The silkworm curls up to sleep for the night. Then the moth flutters awake. Its wings open wider than an outstretched hand.

The moth visits each flower on the highest branches. Open flowers cover the moth’s feet in pollen. Closed flowers bend to the side, coaxed ready for the eventual morning sun.

The heavy, stretching threads along the branches fall to the floor. The moth eats enough from the threads. As much as the silkworm spins.

Trimming. Tightening. Refitting. They share a path along an old tree.

New flowers bloom again. Some quiet nights, when darkness and cold air fill the shop, the warm lamp still glows. The bitten branches fall. And a moth flies in slow circles around the lamp before it rests in the morning sun.

There they are forever. The tree is never empty.