Planted at her birth for maple shade and sway
Big leaf light gathering yellow, a green reach, and sky
Held so in place by its underground life
Limbs so surely rooted and reaching symmetrical flight
Leaves green green filtering a highlighted yellow
Unyielding as the life she already knows she wishes to lead
And so, the tree’s not-yet-lightning-struck boughs
Call the teenager out of the house
Summer’s swung open swoon
A vertigo of the future arriving
Climbing barefoot through the sun
Pollen of her own blooming
The hornet hummed under her blowsy pink nightgown
Stung the flower of her knee
The violence of life sometimes, Nature said, out of her hands
