**The Pomegranate Tree That Flashed by the Roadside**
Along the highway I used to commute on every day, there was a pomegranate tree—lush, leafy, and full of life. It always flashed by, like a fleeting smear of red outside the car window.
The tree was probably planted by a bird, unintentionally, tucked among a long stretch of oleanders in the center divider. It was so easy to miss that I drove past it for seven or eight years without ever noticing. Then, one morning before the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, traffic came to a halt, and I finally caught sight of it. Its branches were laden with large, bright red fruit. If not for that striking color, I would have missed it yet again.
The moment felt like a gift from the sky—a sudden spark that lifted my spirit. After that day, every time I passed by, I’d deliberately slow down, just to get another glimpse. That was only the second pomegranate tree I had ever seen bearing fruit in North America. The first was eight years earlier, at Hearst Castle in Southern California. The trees there were aged and majestic, their fruit dark red and heavy, on the verge of bursting—carrying a classical, solemn beauty. Compared to the many unwelcoming “Visitors Keep Out” signs around the castle, those pomegranate trees felt like old friends from afar, quietly greeting a distant traveler. They reminded me, inevitably, of home—Lintong, the land of giant pomegranates.
That was the place where my memory first met the fruit. My mother once took me to visit the Terracotta Warriors, and on our way back, she brought home two large pomegranates. Later, my older brother bought me another massive one near the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. I couldn’t wait to eat it, but we never managed to get it open the entire trip.
They say that taste is the most persistent memory. What you eat as a child stays with you forever—sometimes even into your final days. I’ve always believed that. When I returned to China two years ago, I had the chance to taste *guaizao*, a wrinkly fruit also native to Lintong. That familiar flavor pulled me straight back to childhood. For me, the pomegranate has long since stopped being just a fruit—it holds far more than flavor. It holds emotion.
I’ve always had a keen eye for beauty. Even in elementary school, I could tell who the prettiest girl in class was. I was a three-stripe team leader, and my personal “little goddess” was our class monitor. Her eyebrows curved like willows—she said she was from Xinjiang, where girls learn to shape their brows from a young age. We often walked home together. Sometimes we’d take shortcuts, climbing over walls. I’d jump down first, then catch her as she came down. My heart was light with joy—puppy love in its purest form. She later got into the Communication University of China and became a television anchor. I guess my taste was pretty accurate.
Back then, it wasn’t just pretty girls I loved—I loved flowers too. The flowerbeds in the courtyard of my parents’ work unit were my secret garden of longing. I couldn’t help myself. Whenever I saw a beautiful bloom, I wanted to take it home. Peonies, roses, chrysanthemums, wintersweet, lilacs—one by one, I “borrowed” them with my tiny hands. But I always failed to take home my favorite: the pomegranate tree. It was too big, its roots too deep for a small boy like me. I tried several times to dig out a shoot with roots, but it took time and patience—very different from snapping off a flower and making a quick getaway. I had to constantly watch out for the gardener suddenly showing up behind me. In the end, I gave up, reluctantly.
That tree was ornamental, not edible. Its fruit was tiny and sour, but its flowers were large and layered—far bigger than those of common pomegranate trees. It wasn’t as dazzling as peonies, nor as fragrant as roses, and its fruit wasn’t even worth eating. But for some reason, my young heart was captivated. I liked it. Loved it. And I could never let it go. That, perhaps, proves the old saying true: what you can’t have is always the most desirable.
Looking back, my affection for pomegranates isn’t just about a missed childhood wish. It feels more like a built-in emotional bond—just as I had a precocious instinct for recognizing beauty, I had a special sensitivity to this tree. The pomegranate, to me, is like a delicate girl rooted deep in my heart. I love everything about her—from her willow-leaf-shaped foliage to her crimson pleated skirt, and the passionate fullness hidden in her fruit.
Now, I’ve come to admire a new quality in her: resilience. The pomegranate does not only flourish in the yellow earth of my homeland—it also thrives in the harsh, dry lands across the Pacific. No matter the soil, she never compromises her nature. She is no “southern orange turned sour in the north.” She stays true. When you see her in the heat of summer, holding her own beside drought-hardened black oaks, oleanders, and cacti—breaking through the crowd to bloom and bear fruit, still able to catch the eye of a passing stranger—you can’t help but be moved. You stop. You stare. And you fall, once again, under her spell.
Pomegranate tree, I wish to walk with you through life.
May I find you at this very time each year—
by the roadside in a foreign land, or blooming quietly in my own garden.
**As osmanthus scents the air in August, so the pomegranate burns red at Mid-Autumn.**