It doesn't seem typical
To tag onto rising life
Drill holes and hang buckets,
Divert some life juice
Capilliaring up from the murky depths
Pushing up essence of earth to the sky
To green the twigs eighty feet up
Releasing the darkness from winter.
It would be typical
Seeking that precious sweetness
To gas up the saws
Fell the trees
Fire the wood
Render down the darkness
Market the juice in cute plastic jars
And truck the added value to the cities.
(And later take our vacations further south
Outside hurricane season. )
Surprisingly, we've learned to dance with gravity,
The god of the bottom line being better served
If we leave the trees standing
To give again another year
The slowest of cattle
Milked every spring.
Might there be a lesson here ?
The new typical, until the trees move north
And our woods learn sultry new tricks,
Keep their sweetness to themselves ?
For now, the buds are swellingThose little leaves will drink
The wells of life will render up the depths
And a year of waiting will pass
Through the heat, the snows, the ice,
To the time of brightening skies
With the sap quietly rising in the typical old way.
