Sap-Rising Song Poem by Lillian Susan Thomas

A sapling learns the work of trees
Is standing tall and pushing deep.
Its being, tall and maple,
Stabs the iris with a hue
Too precisely to be doubted or confused.
But flowers fade;
Leaves fly;
Seeds depart
To start their own slender lives.

And when the thick girth of wood
And snaking labyrinth burrowing below the earth
Hide mysteries too myriad to ignore,
It must reveal the song of roots
And deep inner layers of trunk.
Now beckoned by the insistence of warmth
To let dark rings spill forth and sing,
That sweet dew, distilled from the toil
Of standing tall and pushing deep,
Glows like honey
On rough, cracking bark.