Garden
A cutting in a jar of water
My neighbour handed me a broken branch and said it would root. It did.
Maja Lindqvist
Her fig tree had lost a branch in the storm. She gave me a piece as long as my hand and told me to put it in water on a bright windowsill. I did not believe her.
Three weeks later there were white roots, thin as thread, curling round the bottom of the jar. I checked every morning while the kettle boiled.
In soil now
It lives in a pot by the balcony door. Four leaves. No figs, and probably not for years. I don't mind. It is a branch that refused to give up.
