The Japanese Red Maple I – The Seed

By Peter Shefler

 

Listening to the thunder,

we are both

together once more

watching the lightning, waiting

for the storm

to come full force -

still longing for the rain

to nourish

our tender need -

to have it

trickle down our strong glistening limbs, we are

ready to let it

get under our weathered skin,

and wonder

will it

ever reach our slender tendrilled toes - our

deepest roots, anchored in the same sacred

untilled earth, in the same

beginning

that spreads out so far from here,

like a journey

that always returns to the source -

always to the same tethered spinning star -

always

to the single

unsown seed.

 

And as I stand

under your threading leaves

here now, I see you

are harboring me

like a nestling

from the squall darkening in the west -

and all at the same time

I am holding

your narrow windswept branches

with my arms outstretched - I am

reaching for you

sometimes lost

across many oceans, lest you forget

the song, I still remember the rhyme -

remember so many tears wept

in the long fetches of waves,

and kept in the marrow

at such a cost.

 

I see your leaves are small and green

in the late summer now, and that you are still

holding on

to more than one

of your crimson winged seeds,

even though

the tall grasses are folding

in the August heat - even

though I saw you once

eclipse the brightest sun -

even though I cannot remember

how or where you found me, nor

when I planted you here so

long ago - come September

you will be flushed

bright blood

red again, and I -

I will hold you singing, deep

in my heart, watching

all your leaves fall - flooding

the ground and the fair flowing streams following after -

dreams spread forever in our silken sleep - there,

even

without knowing -

even so apart.