Maples
Poetic roots of change
E.G. Happ
Commerce, Michigan
© Copyright 2026
All Rights Reserved
Contents
Prologue
April
Tromp l'Oeil
A red letter day
Well
The Magician’s Hand
Good Friday
Crowns
Ode to the first warm day
I go back to the pond
Sodden
All Saints Sunday 2004
Spring
Grounded
Autumn Again; New England Shouts
Young boy raking leaves
Essence
Routes
A Partial Portrait
Without a Care
On Top of Balch Hill
A Maple Varies on Rip Road
Sigh the blues
In the garden of Musee Montmartre
What Merritt Brings
Wind
Landing
A maple leaf becomes
Speaking to me
Alliteration Again
Still Life
Last
What it Takes
Square Park
Morning in Marvin's Beach
Listening to the sun as it disappears
Origins
Rings of years
Autumn Sun
Epitaph
Two poems?
Morning Poem xxxi
Gust
Midday Poem iv
Morning Poem vi
Transplants
The Tortoise
Maple
Going to Seed
Autumn
Fine feathered friends
Maples
Prologue
On my birthday this spring, I sat at my desk looking at the four maples outside my window: red-leaf, Japanese, lace-leaf, and a sugar maple just now releasing its flowers, its hint of lime green peeking at me through squinted eyes. I was searching for a single poem about a maple leaf opening like an umbrella. I was surprised to find so many.
Maples have been a companion in my life's journey. My father planted them around our first home, one in front, many in back. At our second home, I helped him plant seedlings from the nearby woods on our barren corner lot; maples and dogwoods. They grew tall as I did. Now in my older years I look out and see these four, each at its own unfurling of the season.
There are oaks, hickories, and black walnuts in these woods, too. They are the solid, immovable presence of the New England and Michigan landscape, but they were simply there. It was the maples and the dogwoods we chose to move from the forest to our property. We invited them to be close, carrying them into our lives, and so it is the maples I have watched most closely. They are the ones that followed me home.
In a sense, these are journeying poems. They were written over four decades, in many places, in every season. But the maple keeps appearing, a familiar witness at each turn of the road. In it I have found spring's rebirth and autumn's letting go, the sweetness that runs beneath the surface, the seeds that spiral off on the wind trusting where they'll land. As I rake through the autumn of my workbooks and celebrate another year, I see them as one long witness of life. And begin to write anew.
1994
April
The late April
maple leaf
hangs like a wing
tucked in semi fold
ready to burst
into flight
drawn by a warm sun
like a moth
to the evening window sash
relentlessly trying
to break through.
The sweet syrup
in the veins
surges from
the grubby roots
dark, damp, buried
it kindles
the wake-up call.
29 Apr 94
1996
Tromp l'Oeil
The artist --
we didn't see
the name--
painted snapshots
to fool the eye;
a leaf on the siding,
under the glass
of the frame,
in the lens
of the camera
and the eye,
this maple awn
with fingertips green
palm yellow
wrist orange
whose summer ran out
to fall as drops
of quivering sap.
the white clapboard
mounting --
the coming snow and ice.
nothing moved,
the whole at once.
painting of
the photograph
of the maple leaf
somewhere in
New England
on an unknown
October day.
10 Jan 96
D. Brega print
A red letter day
the white
plastic
red lettered
shopping bag
filled with
the warm
air of a
spring breeze
floated by
as a balloon
above
the yellow
daffodils
forsythia--
into the
clutches
of an old
maple tree
filled with small
red blossoms
that is only
April--
it hangs empty
now flapping
as an ill
word caught
in the throat
during a
lullaby.
20 Apr 96
Well
Legend has it
this is an old
artesian well
in the square,
center of the
green.
It is deep—
all who draw
from its depths
say it is so,
but the William Tell
who comes in the
night.
He knows—
he has his small
wooden pail
that he has filled
at the market
from the remnants
left on the florist’s
stand—
the fallen petals
stripped from the
outside of rose buds.
He holds his bucket
in two hands
walking softly,
quickly softly,
waiting in the
shadows until all
have drawn their
last.
He approaches her
oval mouth
parched from the sun,
water drawn from her
pores.
He lifts the pail
swimming in
the fragrant waves
of each treasure
to her lips and
pours the nectar down.
With ear pressed to her
edge,
listening to the petals
float one by one
as maple seeds
spinning to the ground,
listening for the
sounds of sating,
sounds of a stiff
throat softening
to supple—
soothing sounds
as soft laughter
between two lovers
in the moonlight—
deeply mellow,
full, and spilling
over.
He rubs his wet
hands ‘round the
rim of her lips,
curls his small
body up to her neck,
and sleeps—
dreaming of
babbling brooks,
deep drips of
plunking damp
underground springs
that rise up
in the morning.
28 Jan 96
1998
The Magician’s Hand
The maple trees
are in red bud early
this year,
their fledgling flowers
fall to waves of siblings
curbed along
the back roads,
dancing to the whoosh
of passing cars.
In the cold nights
and warmer days,
the sap runs sure
as an awakened heart,
the tap pails swing
with the sweet gold juice.
I remember the story
of the young boy
left to watch the vats
of boiling maple sap
in the old sugar house
as his aunt ran off
on an errand.
In lonely moments
of watching a cauldron
come to boil
a boy’s heart goes out
to other places,
of green fields
and street park baseball,
and the longing
for the end of school.
The ache bubbles up
as fast as hot sap
frothing at the rim.
In a panic, the lad
grabs a pitcher
and scoops
as if to bail,
and in the turn
of a wrist,
a splash of cream
falls and sinks.
The boy is astonished
that but a scoopful
has caused the brew
to settle, quiet
in the simmering vat.
His returning aunt
is delighted at the tale,
explaining that it was
the cream that saved
the nascent cook.
In the cold spring nights
of my questing heart
the demons come
and fan the flames
of fear and dread.
Achilles boils in oil
alone.
And I ache for green
fields
and the sweet syrup
of affectionate hands
around my trunk
and limbs.
She brings white nectar
glowing with the sun
in palms cupped
and eyes that bid to drink.
The sweet taste of her
in a single drop
blows through me as
a warm breeze,
and the red buds
of my troubled veins
dance to the wave
of the magician’s
hand.
9 Apr 98
1999
Good Friday
The maple trees
that stand
as wooden
bunched bouquets
along the Merritt Parkway
run red
with the seeds
of Holy Week—
into this
photograph
that is not yet color
we go
alone.
Good Friday
driving
far from
home.
2 Apr 99
Crowns
When spring comes,
his walks grow longer
with the days,
the sun higher in the sky
his eyes follow
the sounds of new birds—
every new green shoot
and bud are a distraction
and a joy.
This is the week when
maples wear a thousand
tiny crowns of red
with flecks of yellow stars
on smaller slender staffs.
Next week they will horde
on the black macadam driveways,
and green leaves will arch
like elbows
and open as a mime
does an awning
slowly cranked.
But now it is this sea of red,
this multitude of crowns—
These are the days before Easter,
with no quenching green hands
waving from the tree.
This breaks him in full stride—
he reaches for his pen—
but it is not in his pocket,
nor clipped inside his coat.
He stops and breaks
a new moist maple twig
to bring back from this high
noon walk,
to place in a vase on his desk
and wait for the words
to come.
5 Apr 99
Ode to the first warm day
This is that
first warm day,
still early spring,
the thermometer
pushing eighty,
Creation cooling
on the rack
after the big bang—
sun and sky,
maples and dogwoods
boasting of life
with shout,
spewing thermals
from a still-open
oven—
and the smell
of air
so invisible
and thick
it would make
a cook
and God
laugh and laugh.
8 Apr 99
2002
I go back to the pond
Driving the back-roads
of Goshen,
I take the long way—
a weekend waits—
there will be
the gathering
of dear friends,
the once-a-year
pilgrimage
of the faithful—
I press
the curves and hills
with the carefree skill
of a Bavarian driver
on holiday—
the imagination
accelerates,
but I am early;
I take in the terrain:
spindly birches,
gray maples,
the late low sun
of early March
running along side
through the trees.
Down the hill
past the marsh
and beaver pond
where just last spring
a painter stood
catching the same
elusive light
on a slow canvas.
At the rise
on the other side,
I realize I
caught somewhere
in the corner
of my eye—
almost missed—
the motion
of what I presume
to be the tireless
beaver tending
to his dam.
I stop,
turn around,
and go back
to the pond,
to sit and
watch alone,
waiting for a sign,
some shift
in the light,
the smooth surface
of the gray water
circling the lodge,
where only mallards
peddle
about the edges.
8 Mar 02
2003
Sodden
Into the
woods
a path
shuffles
through
a brown
phyllo of maple
and oak—
leaves
of fresh history—
here
is a wind-felled tree,
mushrooms
poking up from dark
fecund mulch,
a squirrel foraging
for a nugget.
Turning a page
in a book
on a shelf
in the stacks
of a hallowed library—
I sift for the word
that conveys
the wet tips
of my hiking shoes
26 Mar 03
27 Apr 03
2004
All Saints Sunday 2004
On a glorious day
warm beyond November
some brown leaves
still tethered to trees
by umbilical stems—
I pass the lone red maple
still a-flush with its regal robe:
out of step.
The reservoir is almost full;
the drought of recent past exiled—
and we are mourning
for souls that have gone
before we do,
souls that ache a death
that has no peace.
We a nation under thou-shalt-nots
still cling to the quest of the pure,
the remnant
that is not like the least of us.
So the voice of democracy speaks
with one who is louder
and one falls silenced—
these to whom we would connect
even now like ancestors not forgotten
in the days of glory
all things falling short
like leaves cut from sap.
6 Nov. 04
2005
Spring
Spring does not arrive
in New England
with bass notes--
on the hillsides
still gray with the skins
of beech and maple
are hints of burgundy buds,
limeade greens,
skim milk whites.
Spring in New England is
one hand tinkling with triplets
on the high notes,
the other slowly turning
the sheaves of music--
prelude and refrain
while somewhere off in the wings
is choir of angels
taking in a breath
before blurting out
that finally resonant chord.
21 Apr 05
Grounded
Crossing a grassland field
under so much blue sky
I am insignificant.
A tangerine butterfly
of no name
is my guide
to the end
of this tractor shorn path
to a wildlife blind
and abundant garden.
Here monarchs feed
with a slow pump of wings
on violet heather
with bumble bees so large
I could ride them
on the quiet breeze
that breathes in
and out.
Turning back
as we all must do
on an old rutted road
I see grandfather maples
sentinels so grounded
their reach
is.
5 Sep 05
at Topsmead State Park, Litchfield, CT
Autumn Again; New England Shouts
The October geese align
in a honking vee,
starlings infect a maple tree
with a storm of chatter,
and screaming orange is
again the rage--
Such is the noise of autumn
in New England,
a grand shift into the cool
internment of days
that end before the evening repast--
it is a wonder that hope
still takes wing
that these Crayola leaves
that fall and blow
to heaps crunching brown upon the ground
rise up as swollen buds
of singing green
some other day
too far away
28 Oct 05
Young boy raking leaves
A boy of four or five
is struggling with a rake
twice his size,
it's fan wider than his stance
on which he has caught a meager pile
of oak and maple leaves
that he is trying so hard
to pull from the side of the road
on which I'm driving back home;
he is tripping on the rake fingers
not looking at where he is,
watching his dad,
waiting to be noticed,
waiting for the smile
and "good job"
that calls out from the distance.
23 Nov 05
2006
Essence
The early warm sun
has the sugar maples
yielding--
some of the white buckets
already half-full;
others the morning wind
has blown over--
narrow green hoses
leak sap
on thawing soil.
Bees and ants
still dormant
miss the early feast.
Friends walk with me,
recollecting a birch tree limb
cut and weeping sap;
a felled grape vine,
gushing from roots.
We connect through these
maples,
bound by the taps
and lattice of portals
dripping with essence.
11 Mar 06
2007
Routes
I am sitting in the back seat
of a blue Ford Falcon
holding the maps
provided by the triple-A man;
I am the navigator
and my father is piloting this boat
of a car through the deep south
along route 20 in 1962
"How much further to Tuscaloosa?"
my father asks.
"About this far"
I say holding my thumb and forefinger
to scale.
It is one of those stories
we tell at weddings and funerals.
My brother gets the Michelin map
of Germany, spreads it out
on the table in front of my father
and asks him about the war.
It comes back to him
in the names of towns,
marching in winter,
Deutschland,
pushing down into the cradle
from which his father came.
My brother marks the map
with a translucent marker
so the route shows through
to Dachau and Treblinka
I am driving north on a two-lane road
that runs past the hospital where
I spent a week between the years
of high school classes,
learned how to walk with crutches,
how to move the pads down from the pits
of my arms to a place that was less raw.
Paul Simon's song plays on the radio,
and home is just over the rise
like Scarborough.
Route One-Eleven to a road I don't remember,
turn right; it's a gentle curve down to the end
the house on the corner.
Last Monday I sat at the gray oblong table,
Washington on the monitors,
crisp PowerPoint slides dancing on the wall,
route 33 to my back, stacking up with cars
waiting for the light to change.
I took a detour
to avoid the traffic,
depending on the unit on my dash
to tell me where to turn
Route 25, then 111, 84 and 8
numbers that mark north, east; east and north.
I call you on the phone to say when I'll arrive,
the tiny screen listing the latest estimate--
I've no idea where I am.
Sometimes after a detour
I'll get out the maps
and smooth them out on the table,
feeling the paper press into the hardwood,
its creases yield.
Running my fingers along the route,
I note where I could have turned,
taken a different way
depart from the Interstate, but didn't.
The ways come back to me as an old hand
with veins and lines that look like his.
I put clear tape on the creases
of the state map that have torn,
make new folds, and put them back
in the door pockets, and cabinet where the phone
books age.
On route 4 today, we crested the notch
in the Berkshire hills, past Mohawk Mountain,
through the hemlocks, oaks and maples,
down to the Housatonic,
drove to a red covered bridge
where horse drawn carriages still echo
in the slap of the boards,
and crossed over
to a road without a sign.
1 Aug 07
2008
A Partial Portrait
In seeking to understand,
I am understood...
Listening to one, I hear “kaleidoscope,”
and another, “maple tree”—
I see the shades of focus change
and the sap runs sweet.
13 Apr 08
With thanks to Betsy and Margie; two dear friends who painted the predicates
Without a Care
The hickory is fat with buds,
the oak fuzzy lime,
maple leaves elbow up,
knock red buds to the ground;
magnolias shed tablespoons of white
while azaleas toss lavender
as if it's disposable.
daffodils now genuflect to the tulips,
whose mouths open wider in thirst,
and the heavens, ah the heavens,
an overcast billowing grey
so out of place.
4 May 08
On Top of Balch Hill
The path winds steeply up
between pines
then opens—
grass and wildflowers amass,
tresses left behind
to a grassy knoll,
a solitary maple sentinels
the peak.
To the side, a stone bench,
young lady stretched out in jeans
and white sneakers
a book shielding her eyes
from the sun—
she is immersed.
I tip-toe past
cut to the maple trail
and stop before a huge Sugar;
a barn owl asks from beyond
who goes there?
I listen to the wind
and branches stretch against
each other—
Who, is one waits and watches,
sun full in his face.
25 May 08
On sabbatical in Hanover, NH,
A Maple Varies on
Half blades lay
across the way--
helicopters
was the name
we used long before
we knew the biology
of continuation of the species.
They hang out in pairs,
on the fingertips
of branches--
a wishbone of spring.
I remember reading about times of crisis
when survival meant varying like mad.
Now the gusts from grey clouds
rattle the limbs,
sending off the solo spiral
as daring as that first breath
before the cord is cut.
I reach for one still green,
toss it in the air
and watch it rotor cross Rip Road
with glee.
27 May 08
Sigh the blues
I stop at the poet's bench
beneath the maple
where a two-note bird
opens and closes.
It is the last day
of school;
ease has settled into
the gait of students.
I sit under grey sky
that asks for water
and sigh the blues
for the ebb of beginnings,
the grieving of ends.
News has accumulated
in fat tufts of clouds
that cannot hold up.
It rains.
30 May 08
In the
In the
a woman carries chairs
and sets them up about
the white canopy;
the mallard decoy in the lily pool
keeps watch;
soon a second woman comes;
the two exchange words
as the wind blows large leaves
of what looks like American maples;
across the way a white stucco house
with red tiled roof rises;
a window is open
shutters extend as arms, the slats
fingers;
the sound of dishes clattering
commas the wind;
a harp in blue canvas is wheeled
in front;
more chairs appear;
a lone woman sits at the edge
of a green bench
reading a novel,
red knapsack at her side;
the musician enters in black,
stares up at the sky, shading her eyes
and chooses a new station for the harp;
the woman closes her novel,
slides it into its pocket of red,
zippers shut
and leaves.
6 Jul 08
What Merritt Brings
Driving through a canopy
of maples,
Chris Trapper performing
through speakers at my feet,
I’m back in the far country,
watching a white feather
drift down in the summer drafts
and the song in the air
is of angels.
15 Jul 08
Wind
Standing in the potter's field
the summer wind revives
the soul;
on a three-H-in-July afternoon
a canopy of maples is waving
as if standing under the stream bed
hearing the rush of water-wind
arms outstretched
laying back into the ebb of time
20 Jul 08
At the Arboretum
Landing
Air dams up
in the ears
Flaps groan like ghosts
into positions
Wheels chock down
and drag their heels
one queue spills
into another
each ship
following the next down
down into
the cloudy beret
down to the tops
of maples
to the blue lights
flashing in a row
descent is a way
of grounding
down to the hoot of tires
catching on the tarmac
brakes chunking
the race into bite-sized
clicked of slow.
all of time
stops for the turning
12 Sep 08
A maple leaf becomes
The single leaf
hangs by a stem
that days ago
held it to its mother tree;
now it clutches to a hemlock branch
that has lost all its green—
were it any other season,
the scene would be invisible;
but on the ides of October\
it sings the aria that no other knows—
for this is
and the slanting sun
has taken this orange red maple leaf
and made it a star.
11 Oct 08
Speaking to me
Along the road at night,
I bump a maple leaf,
large and dry—
it skitters on the macadam
with a sustained scritch
speaking to me.
I remember him walking
on the lawn,
back and forth,
shuffling through the leaves—
a native now
remembering the fall.
"I miss the crunching sounds" he said.
I sit on the pier at Marvin’s Beach
and watch October clouds drift
across the moon and disappear;
the ropes on the flag pole
dance in the wind
and chime a slow clap
as if knowing the last line
of the play was said
yet still dawning on
the seated.
16 Oct 08
2009
Alliteration Again
Driving to church in the rain,
the still barren trees weep
for what wonder waits;
I strain to see the tint of red
on the hardwoods,
the yellow beacons before the lighting
of forsythia,
the hinting lime of the willows;
changing lanes on a Sunday late in March
reminds me
of a long winter slowing to a standstill,
a spring still silent, speaking
in the thin slices of the branches,
a hope forked in the lanes of sugar maples,
sweet sap shouting beneath smooth skin
that runs, if I watch and wait,
as surely as this rains rolls down the windshield,
puddles on the hood
and into the rich wine of a cup
that does not pass.
29 Mar 09
Still Life
Wet leaf on round table—
sounds of a still life
on this rainy day
in mid-spring,
when the gloom
of a grey sky
is silenced by this bit of green
shed from a nearby maple tree,
lime flowers and winged seed pods
garnish as parsley on the entree—
this finger-spread sign hope
stuck to the cafe table
with two chairs emptied
of the conversation that will be
percolating above the steamy lattes
when the sun returns
from hiding
and delivers this fruit of May
on a puff of breeze
panted as a newborn's breath.
5 May 09
Last
They are the last
of the maple seeds
haloed on the asphalt
beneath the old tree
along this country way;
the winds of spring
and cars whisking by
cause the pods to dance,
a shake-up in the order
of things;
those that cannot take root
in the fallen days
still able to catch the breeze,
a ride to the soil
that waits everywhere.
4 Jun 09
What it Takes
As the sun swallows summer day
in long gulps to the bottom
of the bay laid out from second beach,
it fusses up the line of thin clouds
tip toeing on the maples
on the other side;
and as the green fades to ebony,
the rays light up what were unseen
children of the rising steam
off in the distance
over the Sound I know lay
between me and the days
I spent on the while school was out;
it takes a splash of wreckage on a blue sky
to make a sunset that
keeps me coming back for more--
these days between the times,
these nights creeping
in like the tide.
6 Aug 09
In The corner
where only pigeons play
and peck,
lay the red arm
of an action figure
left behind;
somewhere there
is a child who plays
with something partly lost;
he remembers the wholeness
of a summer day
with two-inch armies arrayed on warm
green grass,
maple seed pods
falling in a twirl,
disappearing behind a trunk
now thick with seasons;
sometimes these clips
advance as surely as tanks
cresting the hill.
10 Aug 09
Morning in Marvin's Beach
Every morning
when I am home
I pull aside the flowered curtain,
look out on the bay
at the peaceful sailboats
moored there,
and the white buoys
showing the way;
and I am thankful,
for the wind-scattered blue
of water,
and white crusted blue
of sky--
I almost look past
my beloved green:
the hedge and the old maples--
how can one take for granted this view,
I asked my neighbor?
You can't, she said
You can't
20 Aug 09
Listening to the sun as it disappears
She is licking the shoulders
of the maples
across the bay;
I can hear them sigh;
she dares to ask if she'll be back,
each hour in its hour—
those years when maples were
taking stock of the soil,
putting down tap roots
to draw on the veins
of water like kids
sucking on straws stuck
in formidable thick shakes.
Will I come up behind you
and tap your whitening roots
on the other side of nightfall?
Will you feel the gentle stroke
of morning
as if it were the first time
instead of the last?
14 Sep 09
At the west dock at the Shore and Country Club
2010
Origins
Perhaps it is the way
the sun light warbles through
the naked trees
on this late winter day
that makes the clapboard
on the house across the way shimmer
as its light peeks through;
and I think of all the atoms dancing
in every made thing
that was not here
a moment ago,
these maples still shivering
in their seed pods
before the wind shouts fall!
Like a time warp movie
I see the clapboard house
spring from its foundation
and speak of solidarity
with the oaks.
But for this brief changing second
it looked like it was passing away
6 Jan 10
Rings of years
On the High Woods trail
centered in winter
you can see farther,
with a piercing leafless gaze
into the soul of the forest
where subtle shades of gray
become distinct voices of the many;
they speak in hushed tones
of beech, hickory, maple, oak.
If you run your eyes along
the fallen trunk to the circles of the opened cut,
you will see truth so deep
it flows.
Sat., 20 Feb 10 (Lent IV)
During a hike in the woods, snow still on the ground, the trunks of barren hardwood trees dominate the view in all directions. We passed a fallen beech that had been cut to clear the way months ago. The rings of the stump stained with snow melt and sap sang of the years in which the tree had stood. I remembered counting the rings of a stump next to the old white church, abuot which I've written many poems. A section hung in the Meeting Room. It was truly a page of history, dating back when the church was first built. If we were a tree cut down, what history would our lives tell?
Autumn Sun
Driving west on the Merritt
in the late afternoon
the sun washes everything
to silhouette,
the light dancing off
bits of chrome
and hatchback glass
like a jeweler's torch;
if it were not for the patch
of trees
between the Ridge Roads
yielding the vision of the shaded,
I would not see the burning
maples waving me
to exit here.
16 Oct 10
2012
Epitaph
I've been asked to write a poem
about someone's life
that has passed
and we are now remembering;
I knew him for a season
while there are others
who were there when the trees at the curb, so to speak,
shed their training poles,
the rough ropes yellowed and fallen away--
like the cables that fell away when we saw the Apollos--
lift-off into oaks and maples and walnut trees,
that each in its way were regal.
How do I say something compact,
a single page of half lines,
a caption on a photograph,
a snap shot of even the last conversation I had with him?
What if he said nothing memorable,
but showed up at the church dinners
and the picnics,
bewildered at times, simply hugged whoever he thought he knew--
Not a clinging hug, but one that said in some weird way
I'm connected to you.
So I receive this request from the pastor or a family member who heard me read once
and there were tears in the audience.
You look out on his family and friends as if a momentary oracle--
these words were going to put us all to rest.
And that's the point:
creations ex nihilo pop up at the times we are sat down,
were painfully quiet, and paid attention to a beat poet who is not altogether there,
nonetheless say three words in succession: "let there be..."
I leave the sanctuary feeling more the refugee,
hoping that I don't have to do this again and again
until everyone I know refers to me as doctor death
delivering poems as a sentence.
And no poem can be written
before a death
without calling it into being
I love too much to play the superstitions,
for the poem to be a bandage
that if applied well, the wound heals and disappears.
For this
There is no healing.
12 Jun 12
Two poems?
Scuffing fallen leaves
while walking uphill
on a late autumn morning,
I remember him
shuffling around the front lawn
strewn with maples’ hands
saying how he missed that sound
that retiring to the south
had forgotten
I am startled
as if the first time
the sunlight
has stretched out
across the lawn
lounging among the trees
fingers dappling the stucco walls
of the villas along this avenue
until they glow as the ember
of a memory does
when a cool gust
might stir leave
and breathe on their pastel skin
30 Oct 12
2013
Morning Poem xxxi
The early light is dancing
with the autumn leaves;
the flutter in the heart
of the tall trees calls,
and if am holding you
as surely as the sun
holds each yellow and red
maple, oak and beech hands
that are open with a painted palm
that the early light has grasped
and will again
and ever do.
20 Oct 13
Sunday in No. Stamford
Gust
The yellow maple leaf cartwheels
across the littered lawn
as if on a rail into the garden
so this gust of late autumn wind
grabs all in its path
and has us searching for the sheltered side
in parkas with fur trimmed hoods
turning anywhere but straight
into to this crescendo that shakes
the trees until every leaf drops and dances.
24 Nov 13
2015
Midday Poem iv
The late fall wind
is drag racing
the dried maple leaves
down the macadam path;
the scratch-brush-tire
on the snare drum
turns with each step,
and I'm aware
I am walking in the opposite
direction,
not blown in the ways
of the breezy tide
that carries all things
float-able on the common
journey;
but this way
toward the call behind
the cloud,
the end of the golden string*.
19 Nov 15
*63. From ‘Jerusalem’
By William Blake (1757–1827)
To the Christians
I GIVE you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.…
Morning Poem vi
After the morning rain
the yellow maple leaves
are painted on the pavement
as if already written down
in the scrapbook
I have been meaning to start,
like the book of letters
you gave me on my 60th--
each one written
about a memory
that now tumbles like leaves
from this tree
that is next to the stop
where the bus doors open
and say "here".
16 Dec 15
2022
Transplants
“They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.” -- Jeremiah 17:8
My wife is growing oyster
mushrooms,
the fertile log
is in a moist terrarium
in partial light;
she checks it daily
and marvels at its rapid
growth;
soon there will be
an abundant harvest
and I imagine the culinary
creations she will make
I keep a diary
of all the places I have lived
and worked;
it is long and the travel
wide;
there seems little time
to put down roots
for the oak and maple
yet each has been called home;
the places I have sown
less memorable
than the people
I have become,
the river runs through it all
and I am nourished.
Thu., Mar. 17, 2022
The Tortoise
He’s not out today
on the walled patch
of grass his owner
keeps for him
I have ambled on my slow
walk to end of the street
in the hope to
cross his path
in late May
when the bugs
and tree blossoms
are plentiful
the sidewalk here
is strewn with the remnants
of maple pollen
and the brown
helicopter seedpods
that have landed gently
and I wonder what the 50-year
old reptile thinks
of another spring
with familiar things to munch
and on which to marvel.
25 May 22
2023
Maple
The maple tree was weeping
this morning,
its sap running down the trunk
without a tap,
the sweet life oozing,
slipping away
so slowly
it seems less in a hurry
like the season turning;
soon there will be
springs skipping behind,
the maple leaves unfurling
as a shroud.
13 Jan 23
Going to Seed
The wind picked up today
and blew a thousand helicopters
from the maple trees,
they landed gently on the lawn
and gardens
seeking to set up a colony
here on planet earth.
It makes one ponder
if when we're planted
we'll come back
and set down roots
where roots have been
and that even this species
gives birth
like ideas and poems
that sprout,
one in a thousand
grows to shade
with the sun on its back
gathering the young
as a flock.
24 May 23
Autumn
One of the maples
behind the soccer net
on the children’s field
has begun the journey.
Overlooking a now silent pitch
it has shed its summer delights
like an old game.
It is early, I say,
there are still green masters
ringing the playground
and though they too
will follow
for now they are
still in-season
still bearing fruit
as a goal kicked
into the net.
2 Oct 23
2024
Fine feathered friends
My father
built birdhouses
from scraps of wood
and hung them
from the maple arms
in our yard.
So sparrows came
each spring and nested.
and there were feeders
and buckets of bird seed
kept in the garage
to ensure they were full.
Now in my retiring years
I have seven feeders
and a dozen feathered friends
who come to sing to me
I know from whom
they’ve come.
I have named each one
and call to them
when I dodder out
carefully in winter
seed bag in hand,
and they chatter
from the maple trees
for me to hurry,
there’s a gala dinner
to be had.
3 Jun 24
2026
Maples
I say it's a poem
about the maple leaf
opening like an umbrella
that sends me raking
through the decades
to find it;
there are poems
in early spring
when all is new,
the helicopter seeds
of later May,
the opening to
the refuge
of summer shade
and the cover for birds
waiting their turn
to swoop to feeders;
there are the colors of fall
the bright reds and oranges
and the avalanche of leaves
to bag and place out at the curb,
even in winter
there are the shadows
the swaying in the cold winds
and the promise
of the budding life
to come.
11 May 26
Birthday 74
