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."

每年四月我总是被同一个念头困扰着——今年的春天可能不会来了吧。四周的景色一片凄凉，小山、天空和森林灰蒙蒙的，就像画家的名作画成之前画布上的底色一般。我情绪低沉，15年前我初次来到缅因州，一次四月里下雪的时候我便是这样。“等等看”，一个邻居劝我，“说不定哪一天你一觉醒来，春天已经来了。”

果不其然，那年的5月3日，我一觉醒来，发现（窗外）绿意逼人，简直让人惊异。春天好像开了闸一样一下子就来到了眼前。小山、天空和森林霎间显出了紫色、蓝色、绿色。树叶舒展开来，黄雀翩翩飞来觅食，黄水仙也朝天竞相生长。

然后就是那棵老苹果树了，它耸立在我家附近的一块荒地中。它不属于任何人，所以也就归每个人所有。苹果树乌黑、虬曲的枝条因未经修剪而恣意蔓生。每到春天，它便蓬勃绽开花蕾，空气中弥漫着苹果花的芳香。当我开着车窗驱车路过的时候，它让我觉得是到了另一个天地，如同孩子乘坐水滑梯一般。

直到去年为止，我还以为就我一个人意识到这棵树的存在。后来有一天，在春天引起的疯狂冲动中，我拿着整枝器和修枝剪，想除掉一些杂乱无章的树枝。我刚站到树下，邻居们就纷纷打开窗户，或者走到门廊上。这些人我几乎都不认得，也很少与他们说话，但眼前这情形就像我未经允许擅自闯进他们的私家花园一般。

一位住在活动房中的邻居首先开口：“你不是要砍倒它吧？” 当我砍掉一条树枝的时候，另一个邻居心疼得跟什么似的。“喂，别把它弄死了。”他警告道。不一会儿，附近几乎一半的人都跑来和我一起站到了苹果树荫下。我猛然意识到我已经在这儿住了五年，然而直到现在我才开始了解这些人的名字，他们以何为生，以及他们如何过冬。似乎这棵老苹果树是为了让我们彼此认识和共享自然的美妙这个双重目的才把我们召集到它的树干下的。这时，我情不自禁地想起了罗伯特•弗罗斯特的诗句：

春树幽闭的芽中藏着碧绿

即将长成阴阴夏木——

那次融洽的交流开了个好头。就在几天前，我在附近的店里看见一个邻居。他说去年冬天特别漫长，哀叹长时间不见邻居，也没跟他们说过话。然后，又想了一下，他看着我说：“我们需要再给那棵苹果树修修枝了。”

* 罗伯特•弗罗斯特（1874-1963)，美国诗人，作品主要描写新英格兰的风土人情，曾四次获得普利策奖。文中引用的诗句选自他的Spring Pools一诗。