Acer Saccharum

It was too early, but the farmer
strung the Christmas lights
on his favorite young maple
bright in the chilly sun.

Soon the lights would be
the only covering it had.

Naked in its least favorite season
passing hikers would comment on
the beauty of snow glistening
on the maple’s slender boughs
smooth like young boys’ legs.

And oh, how jealous the maple was
of the apple trees, producing
such lovely fruit that
the farmer picked it
to make cider and pies.

When the maple matured,
in its fifteenth year,
only small winged seeds
would attempt to laden its branches
spinning like helicopters in the fall breezes
of years yet to come,

When the farmer’s children would carefully
dissect them, and stick them on their noses
pretending to be elephants, giggling in the shade.

It was jealous too of the chattering squirrels
racing up and down the worldly oak,
collecting acorns and building nests,
and ignoring the maple, finding little use
for small branches and seeds.

And though the maple wanted to shed its own bark,
to produce something more useful, or delicious,
what it wanted most was just to reach
its fifteenth year.