The Seven Dwarves

My fingers are sore and the space between my thumb and forefinger is red from dense, dry wood. I can feel the branches in my skin. Its amazing what goes into the making of olive oil, the production of something seemingly so simple. How we go to the supermarket, pick out of fifteen choices of extra virgin glass bottles, pour it in our pans, lay it on crusty bread, shake it with lemon juice. The complexities of life never cease to amaze me; The time in between, the waiting, the warmth and then bamboo canes we thrust in twisting branches. Olives are so beautiful. The less mature, the more green, the more mature, the deeper purple. I love to find the ones that are changing, the spotted and mis shaped. I’d like a sea of small trees, fresh juicy olives, and an old one for hand picking. I’d spend our seventy two hours in ever branch, in each crevice, touching each fruit. I wonder how the oil would taste different if our fingers sorted through the branches as opposed to the wind. This work seems relevant to an overall appreciation of the universe. These trees are so thick and bent, I love their slate coloured trunks. Its amazing, just amazing, that they’ve been rooted, and circling ,and to think of all of the hands that have picked, the bodies they have held. The bottoms of my feet are brown and I think tomorrrow I’ll wear boots, but maybe not. Lunch has never tasted better at four o’clock after sweaty palms and hours spent in the sky.