Plant the Seed of the Carob Tree
Plant the Seed of the Carob Tree
Acrylic on honeycomb cardboard
25" x 30"
$4500
A young boy sat beneath the broad canopy of a carob tree, his cheeks sticky with its sweet pods. He was swinging from one of the lower branches, the kind that bends just enough to feel like it’s flying.
It was late afternoon when he saw an old man walking down the road, carrying a small spade and a pouch of seeds. The man stopped nearby, knelt in the dirt, and began to dig.
“What are you planting?” the boy asked.
“A carob tree,” the man replied, without looking up.
The boy scrunched his nose. “But they take forever. You’ll be gone before it grows.”
The man smiled at that. “I know,” he said. “But when I was your age, I spent whole days under a tree just like this one. I climbed its trunk. I hid in its branches. I ate more pods than I could count.” He leaned back on his heels and wiped his brow. “Someone planted it long before I was born. I’m just doing the same.”
The boy was quiet then. He looked up at the tree above him, at the light shifting through its leaves, at the branch that had held him without breaking.
And for the first time, he realized the sweetest things in life don’t always come from what we build for ourselves - but from what someone else once chose to leave behind.
Plant the Seed of the Carob Tree
Acrylic on honeycomb cardboard
25" x 30"
$4500
A young boy sat beneath the broad canopy of a carob tree, his cheeks sticky with its sweet pods. He was swinging from one of the lower branches, the kind that bends just enough to feel like it’s flying.
It was late afternoon when he saw an old man walking down the road, carrying a small spade and a pouch of seeds. The man stopped nearby, knelt in the dirt, and began to dig.
“What are you planting?” the boy asked.
“A carob tree,” the man replied, without looking up.
The boy scrunched his nose. “But they take forever. You’ll be gone before it grows.”
The man smiled at that. “I know,” he said. “But when I was your age, I spent whole days under a tree just like this one. I climbed its trunk. I hid in its branches. I ate more pods than I could count.” He leaned back on his heels and wiped his brow. “Someone planted it long before I was born. I’m just doing the same.”
The boy was quiet then. He looked up at the tree above him, at the light shifting through its leaves, at the branch that had held him without breaking.
And for the first time, he realized the sweetest things in life don’t always come from what we build for ourselves - but from what someone else once chose to leave behind.
Plant the Seed of the Carob Tree
Acrylic on honeycomb cardboard
25" x 30"
$4500
A young boy sat beneath the broad canopy of a carob tree, his cheeks sticky with its sweet pods. He was swinging from one of the lower branches, the kind that bends just enough to feel like it’s flying.
It was late afternoon when he saw an old man walking down the road, carrying a small spade and a pouch of seeds. The man stopped nearby, knelt in the dirt, and began to dig.
“What are you planting?” the boy asked.
“A carob tree,” the man replied, without looking up.
The boy scrunched his nose. “But they take forever. You’ll be gone before it grows.”
The man smiled at that. “I know,” he said. “But when I was your age, I spent whole days under a tree just like this one. I climbed its trunk. I hid in its branches. I ate more pods than I could count.” He leaned back on his heels and wiped his brow. “Someone planted it long before I was born. I’m just doing the same.”
The boy was quiet then. He looked up at the tree above him, at the light shifting through its leaves, at the branch that had held him without breaking.
And for the first time, he realized the sweetest things in life don’t always come from what we build for ourselves - but from what someone else once chose to leave behind.