Silver Maple

[jim turner]

Once his weedy sapling, the silver maple
grew tall, spread wide, a great green ball
except when winter’s cold storm wind
played mournful song on those dark bones.

The old man’s hair shone silver, too,
like the tree’s spring leaves, trembling,
seeing a forgotten lad with golden eyes
riding astride a giant, fantastic arm.
“How from earth did you get up there?
Only one boy I knew could climb so high!”
Bare, thin shoulders shrugged naive reply:
“Just did, I guess. Now it’s a long way down.”

“Hold on,” he said. “I’ll fetch a ladder.”
The slow sun climbed till he returned,
stunned to find the boy remembered gone.
Amazed, he let the useless ladder fall,
laughed a childish, wild, exultant yell,
leapt, squirreled up and vanished in the tree.

Jim 4/21/10

[Sue Littleton]

Before I start praising, shouldn't "his" in the first line be "this"? Have you noticed hope (great example!) HOW you very clearly tell your fingers what to write and instead find they have chosen a completely off word? Grrrrr!

This is a very profound and beautiful poem-story. You are on a roll, Jim! Hugs, Sue

[Steve Plonk]

Jim, You BE the silver leaves on your family tree. Silver and Gold!

[hester_prynne]

A delight to read....
again and again.
Nice work
H

[jim turner]

Thank you all! A pleasure to be read and get favorable comments. And Sue, his is correct, suggesting that he and the tree were saplings at the same time, or, perhaps, even that as a boy he planted it. Oh, well, he was the only one who really knew.

The poem comes from an oak, not a maple. I always remembered that when I walked down our driveway in 1943 to enlist in the Navy Air Corps, the tree was a little thing--its trunk about an inch in diameter--on the east side of the drive (two paths of white sand--actually years of crushed native granite--with a row of weeds between them.) Last time I was there--1992 I think--it was so big I couldn't get my arms around it. I haven't "squirreled" into it yet.