Maple Tree

I bud with the maple tree
     in Spring.

For as insignificant as we seem,
     come summer,
     we shall grow, and develop...
     make manifest our promise

Come first frost
     our colors will change
     and beauteous become our pigmentation,
     as experience will become this adult body
     into which I've settled.

So as our days are spent,
     whether as bud or as autumn leaf,
     we bring our ideas to fruition.

And despite the promise of this Spring,
     I regret
     that all I have now
     is this bud
     on a maple tree that needs pruning,
     in a yard someone else landscaped.

~ In the 1980s