Young Maple

trunk no thicker than my wrist, 
 
bark smooth as an unshaven youth,
slim, spindly—
 
you were planted 
the summer my son was born. 
 
I birthed him— 
my womb the soil 
 
he seeded in, my ligaments
turning him out
 
into the July sun,
his slight limbs unfolding 
 
like leaves, his small
mouth blossoming— 
 
but to your planting I was
passive. Your roots 
 
were placed in the soil 
without my help. I was 
 
observer, left no instruction. 
The child I fed,
 
I fed for a thousand days.
Tucked in beside me,
 
he grew: round cheeks and belly, 
skin sweet as butter, limbs
 
lengthening each year. 
You, in your silence
 
I neglected. 
Now you are small 
 
for your age, patchy,
branches curving upwards
 
to the sun, still hesitant. 
I want to say I tended you too. 
 
I want to say
I was a gardener, loving
 
the trees like my own child. 
But I was undone by love
 
and labor, and you survived 
despite me. 
 
Now I sit and watch you creep
towards the sun, measure 
 
each twig's slight growth,
each leaf's small opening.