Outside my window sits
a grand old maple
that I have grown to favor,
not because it’s mine, but rather,
I belong to it—despite
our separate homes in nature.
I see how it bears
the burdens of aging:
enduring (as it’s able) a long, gaping fracture
running through its most splendid limb—
the one that used to sway
with a lazy homemade swing,
the one that still wakes up in the spring,
no matter, with a full mane of green.
Yet this limb’s fissure continues to widen,
straining the cable I’ve hitched beneath,
like a sling, to support this sagging bough.
And though this tree beckons no more or less
than countless others I pass each day,
I’m set on this one, now;
resolved to preserve this organ of the earth
as it echoes our shared fate.
When the wind churns up its leaves
and this stoic cathedral intones
its own Gregorian chant,
the long reach of its bending
yet stalwart branch
reminds me again and again:
make the time you are given well spent.