Silver Maple, Solstice

Bird Lake, June 21, 2022

And still, forty years later, I lean

my cheek to your trunk, breathe

familiar summer. I imagine the sap

pulse running through, what your roots

tell the lake, what they told the other

two maples you once knew,

network of under earth shared

in the black of Michigan soil. Storms

stole them, trunks yanked back

from decades. Lightning severed,

both fell with such protest they took

a house right down to its stone

basement heart. They never wanted to go.

I share this with them.  I share

this with you.  Keep up in gale and ice,

hundreds high. Hold fast in spring’s

torment wind. Abandon any blight. 

Attend only to the insects

that adore, the birds that make

respectful nests. I say this all as I round

you, touch a secret I don’t want to admit:

one small rusted nail. You’ve grown

around it, taken the scar as a mossed beauty.   

But I remember the story another way:

the tin sign it held after we hammered

it into you: Payne Cottage, est. 1982.

Forgive us for wanting to claim

what was never grown for owning.

Forgive us for attempting to harness majesty,

believing it was anything but yours.