Winter Maple

Winter Maple
By Christopher J. Bradley
February 10 1998 2:15 PM

You have no leaves now
But it is a warm winter.
Soon you will have buds
growing sprouting with the sun's heat.

Your skin is cold to the touch
a bark made of thin brown wood
And I stand
no longer polluting the air.

I stand with a friend
And I tell her about you
How I've thought about you
How I've spent hours with you and the moon.

You have not faded away
since I have made my wish to dance with you
And the mold
maybe it is one of your silly ornaments.

Can you bring the inside out again
so that I can take your seed
and plant it into an unmowed grass
where it will grow and make rich saplings?

Of course you can
You will out exist me easily
After all the back yard is not paved
And it is bigger than all of your minor plot of turf.

Your infinite growth
ensures that
No concession will be made
to the stone that moves like a sifting sand in winter.