The Mesquite Tree: A Love Story for Kids

If Shel Silverstein’s tree had been a mesquite instead of an apple tree, the story may have been less heartwarming…

There was a tree who loved a boy very much. The boy felt uncertain of the tree’s intentions.

So the tree gave the boy its tiny leaves, but they were so small the boy couldn’t do anything with them and grew tired trying to rake them up.

Then the tree gave the boy some fuzzy blossom things that fell everywhere. But the boy had no use for these either and also had a difficult time raking them up.

The tree still loved the boy, so the tree gave the boy some impossibly hard seed pods — you know, just as a friendly gift. Again, the boy found these difficult to rake up. The boy grew perplexed at the uselessness of the tree’s gifts and wondered if something might not be lost in trans-species affection.

Then, one day the tree started leaving a whole bunch of small thorny branches on the ground and the boy was like “Okay, now you’re just being passive aggressive.” But the tree was totally like, “I can’t believe you don’t like my gifts.”

Then the boy grew so frustrated and irritated and angry that he decided to chop the tree down. The tree was so hard that even a strong chainsaw could hardly get through it. The boy used the wood to cook barbeque and for the first time the boy was like, “Okay, this tree is alright.”

Tired from the barbeque and in need of a place to sit, the boy looked at the stump and sat on it and was finally happy with the tree. But then he noticed that the stump was sprouting dozens of tiny green branches and the tree was like, “HAHAHAHAHA AND YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD KILL LOVE MY LOVE IS ETERNAL JUST AS I AM ETERNAL”

And the boy was totally creeped out because the mesquite tree has a weird way of expressing love.

By Jason Bruner, father of 1 and homeowner with 8 semi-beloved mesquite trees.