i dreamed of an orange tree

a poem about how climate changes communities

*transcript below

beneath my fingernails I once harbored the pith of citrus.

persistent yet pliable, it clung to their underside.

the culprit of peels was an orange tree, located 50 paces north and 25 east of my childhood home.

the one I hid behind during games of tag and nourished from on sweltering summer afternoons.

as many moons passed, 50 paces began to feel like 500 and then 5000.

it became impossible for me to hear the tree’s whisper, let alone lip service from my neighbor’s living room window,

which was once open, now shut.

every El Niño or so, I snuck one of those sunset snacks, but as the days became hotter and the soil sufficiently sodden, my visits grew fewer and more far between,

even as the harvests multiplied.

with age and climate change, the narrow winged petioles of our community fanned and flattened—and with it my citron connection.

like segments of the fruit we once shared, we existed adjacent but never amalgamated.

one year, the bittersweetness reached its peak. 

on an evening stroll, I noticed the tree reflected a peculiar monotone out of rhyme with the fruit’s naturally warm hue.

following the sweet smell of Valencia, I was stunned to see the fruit’s porous beauty bruised by barcodes.

each orange vandalized by a plastic price tag, symbolizing a financial rind against neighborly behavior.

neighbors whose groundwater fueled germination, flowering, and senescence. 

neighbors who once exchanged their apples for oranges.

now hindered from indulgence by more than thorns.

for a step onto this land indicated transaction. 

security policed the property and intermittent inspections ensured every fruit produced was balanced and accounted for.

paying it forward turned into just paying it, community to capital, home to wholesale.

the backyard patio once hosting block parties now hosted patrons of America’s most-consumed fruit. 

what’s ours became theirs.

with each passing year, as the hoarding and weather intensify, I become more insensible.

persistent yet pliable, the climate changes the neighborhood.

Goodbye Sunshine State.

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Audio clip transcript: the following poem was inspired by a dream I had a few nights ago. the story was about citrus trees, property rights, and climate change, and it takes place in my childhood neighborhood, in the side yard of a house on the crossroads. there lives an orange tree, once a communal haven, but with resource scarcity and soil and water conditions associated with climate change is now a privatized luxury. as you read this poem, I implore you to think about this question: what does neighborly behavior look like in a changing climate?

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