The Japanese Red Maple III - Seeking Shelter

 

By Peter Shefler

 

Coming in from the wild

garden, breaking down old stone walls from the still-water;

in the silted clay, finding the Japanese red

maple leaves, pressed and laid flat

as a psalm, like a parchment page

in an unturned book.

 

And in the cold calm eve,

taking my rest

before the fading

sun, I sat beneath that spreading tree

I planted so long ago - in memories,

its branches bend now

to the weight of dreams unfolded

in those wilted places of the heart

that were never ever

to an endpoint travelled - and so

do I hear your cries; and so can I never

into your chilling distance look.

 

A glass of tawny port, unsipped,

sits on the round slate table

where you once beside me

sat - regal, winged seeds of crimson fire

and emeralds both, falling

and reflected in your drifting eyes - no,

I cannot send you any more fabled tales

of need cried out, nor in the end,

hear your sad sea-birds calling.

 

Where your sounding waves

meet my ragged shore -

in the darkening night

when there is but one star

between the weather and the lee,

and no taste of even the slightest sliver

of the huntress’ moon, it seems this tree

might both unravel and surround me

like a womb inflorescent, yet in sweetness

succulent and umbilical, we are

grown so close,

and wedded now, you see.

 

Like thunder, you quiver in my delving roots

unequivocal; like Chiron’s arrow poisoned, you echo the self

same twin and clearest arc of flight - yet forever sundered

like the wind-swept leaf,

you are still flickering, bedded

as an ember,

undiminished in my narrow night - you are

still to me as the nearest lighthouse, certain -

and finally,

so formidably bright

and free.