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57 The Garden You Tended Everything that’s died in the garden you tended has started falling, piling up, drying out, debris of lives that have ended. I don’t know whether the gist of the mystery hides in what lives or in what dies or whether both must be aligned before they can be blended with the permanent air, your influence extended like the newly-budded Mandarin tangerine tree which stayed alive in spite of my almost wanton abandonment. When I saw that it lived beyond you and mocked me with its vigor, I pretended it was fatally flawed in the pot. My neglect was easily defended. As I withheld light and water, its parched fruit dropped. Not one lived. Brittle stems, yellow leaves were what bitterness engendered. My heart began to break further. I surrendered, gave it sustenance, dragged it closer to the sun. Soon leaves opened, my ambivalence seemingly mended. It lived on a few more months, nearly a year. The tree is dead. I’d better feed what lives. ...

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