Every April I am beset by the same concern--that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks forsaken, with hills, sky and forest forming a single gray meld, like the wash an artist paints on a canvas before the masterwork. My spirits ebb, as they did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. "Just wait," a neighbor counseled. "You'll wake up one morning and spring will just be here."

Andlo, on May 3 that year I awoke to a green so startling as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of flipping a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and green. Leaves had unfurled, goldfinches had arrived at the feeder and daffodils were fighting their way heavenward.

Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped lot in my neighborhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree's dark twisted branches sprawl in unpruned abandon. Each spring it blossoms so profusely that the air becomes saturated with the aroma of apple. When I drive by with my windows rolled down, it gives me the feeling of moving in another element, like a kid on a water slide.

Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a fit of spring madness, I set out with pruner and lopper to remove a few errant branches. No sooner had I arrived under its boughs than neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their porches. These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come unbidden into their personal gardens.

My mobile-home neighbor was the first to speak. "You're not cutting it down, are you?" Another neighbor winced as I lopped off a branch. "Don't kill it, now," he cautioned. Soon half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple arbor. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning these people's names, what they did for a living and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree gathering us under its boughs for the dual purpose of acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn't help recalling Robert Frost's words:

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds

To darken nature and be summer woods

One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbors at the local store. He remarked how this recent winter had been especially long and lamented not having seen or spoken at length to anyone in our neighborhood. And then, recouping his thoughts, he looked at me and said, "We need to prune that apple tree again."

每年四月我總是被同一個念頭困擾著——今年的春天可能不會來了吧。四周的景色一片凄涼，小山、天空和森林灰蒙蒙的，就像畫家的名作畫成之前畫布上的底色一般。我情緒低沉，15年前我初次來到緬因州，一次四月里下雪的時候我便是這樣。“等等看”，一個鄰居勸我，“說不定哪一天你一覺醒來，春天已經來了。”

果不其然，那年的5月3日，我一覺醒來，發現（窗外）綠意逼人，簡直讓人驚異。春天好像開了閘一樣一下子就來到了眼前。小山、天空和森林霎間顯出了紫色、藍色、綠色。樹葉舒展開來，黃雀翩翩飛來覓食，黃水仙也朝天競相生長。

然后就是那棵老蘋果樹了，它聳立在我家附近的一塊荒地中。它不屬于任何人，所以也就歸每個人所有。蘋果樹烏黑、虬曲的枝條因未經修剪而恣意蔓生。每到春天，它便蓬勃綻開花蕾，空氣中彌漫著蘋果花的芳香。當我開著車窗驅車路過的時候，它讓我覺得是到了另一個天地，如同孩子乘坐水滑梯一般。

直到去年為止，我還以為就我一個人意識到這棵樹的存在。后來有一天，在春天引起的瘋狂沖動中，我拿著整枝器和修枝剪，想除掉一些雜亂無章的樹枝。我剛站到樹下，鄰居們就紛紛打開窗戶，或者走到門廊上。這些人我幾乎都不認得，也很少與他們說話，但眼前這情形就像我未經允許擅自闖進他們的私家花園一般。

一位住在活動房中的鄰居首先開口：“你不是要砍倒它吧？” 當我砍掉一條樹枝的時候，另一個鄰居心疼得跟什么似的。“喂，別把它弄死了。”他警告道。不一會兒，附近幾乎一半的人都跑來和我一起站到了蘋果樹蔭下。我猛然意識到我已經在這兒住了五年，然而直到現在我才開始了解這些人的名字，他們以何為生，以及他們如何過冬。似乎這棵老蘋果樹是為了讓我們彼此認識和共享自然的美妙這個雙重目的才把我們召集到它的樹干下的。這時，我情不自禁地想起了羅伯特•弗羅斯特的詩句：

春樹幽閉的芽中藏著碧綠

即將長成陰陰夏木——

那次融洽的交流開了個好頭。就在幾天前，我在附近的店里看見一個鄰居。他說去年冬天特別漫長，哀嘆長時間不見鄰居，也沒跟他們說過話。然后，又想了一下，他看著我說：“我們需要再給那棵蘋果樹修修枝了。”

* 羅伯特•弗羅斯特（1874-1963)，美國詩人，作品主要描寫新英格蘭的風土人情，曾四次獲得普利策獎。文中引用的詩句選自他的Spring Pools一詩。