Outside my window there is a large, gnarled fig tree, tall and straggly. It is not a pretty tree and tells its story openly and without embarrassment. I would imagine it has been there for decades, perhaps fifty years or more.

This tree is hardy. Lichen-covered and world-wise branches, crooked and straight, tell of the years’ passage. It has withstood many, many human attempts at mastery, and recovered undaunted, regrouped and sent out new limbs in defiance. It stands impervious and self-contained, doing its thing year after year, expecting nothing of anyone.

Each spring the tree unfurls its rough, giant leaves which shelter tiny fig buds, buds so tiny that almost-mature figs come as a surprise beneath the leaves. Twice a year it produces those figs, green and hard turning burnished brown and soft, ripe for the picking and eating, full of the year’s sunshine and rain.

Now, in autumn, the tree is gradually losing those leaves, all brittle and brown, curling upwards as if desperately trying to hold on. But, inevitably, they fall, slowly, in ones and twos until, eventually, every limb will be bare and the ground beneath carpeted inches deep, preparing next year’s nourishment.

But it is not over for the tree.