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I’m walking through the city, holding a lemon tree in my hands. It’s quite large, and I’m holding it up like a banner of joy.

Passersby smile and want to chat with me. Young and old. Some want to touch the lemons.

“Oh, what a beautiful lemon tree!” It’s gorgeous!” “Real? What joy radiates from it, and from you.” “Just mind the wind doesn’t blow it away.” “Celebrate your sunshine!”

I’ve been thinking about it for over a week. Ever since I saw it in the store. It’s a plastic tree. But who cares, it looks real. Quite expensive. But whatever. I usually don’t pay that much attention to artificial plants. But this tree immediately stole my heart.

I’d come to the store and imagine it standing on my balcony. And then I’d wake up in the morning and see cheerful lemons among the dark green leaves against the backdrop of the garden. I’ve been smiling since dawn.

In ancient cultures, lemon trees were revered as the “Golden Apples of the Garden of the Hesperides,” a symbol of joy, life, and health.

Without question or mythology, this is precisely the effect my tree has on me. And not just me. Eugenio Montale, the Italian poet, wrote:

(…)

You look around. Your mind seeks,
makes harmonies, falls apart
in the perfume, expands
when the day wearies away.
There are silences in which one watches
in every fading human shadow
something divine let go.

The illusion wanes, and in time we return
to our noisy cities where the blue
appears only in fragments
high up among the towering shapes.
Then rain leaching the earth.
Tedious, winter burdens the roofs,
and light is a miser, the soul bitter.
Yet, one day through an open gate,
among the green luxuriance of a yard,
the yellow lemons fire
and the heart melts,
and golden songs pour
into the breast
from the raised cornets of the sun.

Fragment of “The Lemon Trees” by Eugenio Montale.