Maple Trees

                              can’t bring the world close enough

                              to fill their sample hands

                              bare to the center of the chest

                              honest as tree limbs who shed

                              their savage red life’s leaves

                              in trade for winter dirt.

                              They beseech us to speak
                              of more significant things,

                              of gratitude that spins into

                              intangible kindness when no one seeks

                              to be housed or colored or fed.

                              At the same time in the same trials

                              in the same composted way we

                              all dig for savored grace. This is why

                              breathing never leaves us, it only

                              dissolves into thin white clouds

                              that reveal the real soul of the world,

                              bear every breaking thing,

                              curl into a naked blue sky made

                              of the same wet words that

                              desire the same summer light

                              the same forgiving
                              clean water rain

                              as us.