TAPPING THE SUGAR MAPLE

Today we go tap the sugar maple

There is a chill in the air

We, bundled up and distracted

Are impervious to the cold

As we traipse through the woods

I notice that the giant rhod0dendrums

are going the way of the compost to sleep,

Another year gone

But the sap from the sugar maple

And you are making the syrup in the old kitchen

You stir and stir and it never sticks

The house smells of sweetness and fire

I am at my keyboard listening to opera

And the south has its hold on you

And I invent another life

One that I can dream about

We walk tapping the drains in the trees

And I wonder if the tree feels the mordida,

The little bite that gives us sweetness

We hang the buckets to catch the droplets

Sometimes when we do this chore, the droplets fall from my eyes at another year gone

And they go so swiftly now, my dove

I drag my feet to slow the days

I am selfish; I want more days and nights beside you, with the quiet music of the night

And the sweet smell of your neck

The scent of work and sweetness

You never seem to age, your eyes always clear

But as I sit in my solitude

Tapping away at the keys

Thinking of all my heart has endured

Until now

Sometimes I feel as if the drainpipes we hammer into the sugar maple have been tapped into my heart

And the sap is my blood, the blood of days I have wasted, the years I have burned through

So I tap the keys and make my life up

I invent the story with the happy ending

While listening to ballad after ballad,

Love song followed by another

I have made poor choices and I rue those days

Of all the things that I have forgotten

I wish those days would fly from me

Like the red-tailed hawk soars

So I write these sonnets and place myself

Into the arms of an imagined beloved

Our eyes cannot leave the others

And the fire burns, as does the fire that sweetens the syrup

I know one day soon they will drench my Johnnycakes and sweeten our lips

And so help me I cannot help but lean over

And taste your mouth of berry stained lips

And as we kiss, sometimes I need guidance to

Come back to where I sit at the hand-hewn table

I get lost in some astral plane and had you not the interstellar thread that connects your heart to mine

I would float away with sweetness of the sugar maple on my lips and the thoughts of the giant rhododendroms coming in the spring when you also blossom

The south holds you and the mountains

Surround me and could I float down the river

Tonight I would launch my craft and float to you and taste the syrup of your lips and lose myself in your delicate and inviting eyes

But again, I make my life up

I invent it with the keyboard

And sometimes I believe it will come true

As I write I believe it is as true as the air you breathe

Copyright by Miguel Forbus, july 2007

Written today