Yes, back to the trees. Because where else do you go for shelter in high summer? And what better vision can there be for the last third of life than drilling for sweet honey in the rock?
Green Figs
I want to live like that little fig tree
that sprouted up at the beach last spring
and spread its leaves over the sandy rock.
All summer its stubborn green fruit
(tiny flowers covered with a soft skin)
ripened and grew in the bright salt spray.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil was a fig tree, or so it is said,
but this wild figure was a wanton stray.
I need to live like that crooked tree --
solitary, bittersweet, and utterly free --
that knelt down in the hardest winds,
but could not be blasted away.
It kept its eye on the far horizon
and brought honey out of the rock.