Silver Maple, Solstice
And still, forty years later, I lean
my cheek to your trunk, breathe
familiar summer. I imagine the sap
pulse running through, what your roots
tell the lake, what they told the other
two other maples you once knew,
network of under earth shared
in the black of Michigan soil. Storms
stole them, trunks yanked back
from decades. Lightning severed,
both fell with such protest they took
a house right down to its stone
basement heart. They never wanted to go.
I share this with them. I share
this with you. Keep up in gale and ice,
hundreds high. Hold fast in spring’s
torment wind. Abandon any blight.
Attend only to the insects
that adore, the birds that make
respectful nests. I say this all as I round
you, touch a secret I don’t want to admit:
one small rusted nail. You’ve grown
around it, taken the scar as a mossed beauty.
But I remember the story another way:
the tin sign it held after we hammered
it into you: Payne Cottage, est. 1982.
Forgive us for wanting to claim
what was never grown for owning.
Forgive us for attempting to harness majesty,
believing it was anything but yours.
by Julie E. Bloemeke
from Poetry Magazine