I heard the sturdy maple tree groan
Underneath the frigid fingering of the air’s hand.
Bending back my head, I watched nature clasp,
Hand-in-hand, fingers writhing, in an arm
Wrestling match.

Light broke through the cumulus clouds
Attending the event, as if a spotter,
Checking the grip
And in the moments between blinks
I was reminded of the swaying
Children on branches. On branches
Swung a number of tires and quartered logs
Leaving their imprint on the maple’s fingers
Like removed wedding rings or forgotten hair ties
Around a father’s wrist.

Circulation gets cut off.

But, the memories resurrect phantom limbs
From the white noise of nature’s audience
To the music of a swinging rope,
The scurrying of sneakers up bark,
And through the years of children’s laughter,

Vs.

The silence of decaying rope,
tires, and logs snapping and cracking,
The sounds of scraped knees,
And the screams of tears that followed
Like a blustering whir from a chainsaw

To the maple’s ears
These sounds brought tears,
That never dampened souls
But rather sugared innocent lips
It cried honey-like blood
As if it were a sacred statue
Gone unnoticed, until now

That the swaying of time-
Has begun to sway the outcome
Of this arm-wrestling match
Clasped between arthritic branches
And an enduring wind.
The odds were stacked from the start.
Even though- that maple still stands,
Wavering back and forth
As finger-after-finger loses strength.
It holds on

Knowing that it stands
For those children
That are grown now,
Standing in front of
This poem, they know

And that maple smiles
Like the smiles it brought to faces
Facing a future that is so uncertain
Knowing that some day
It will inevitably
Crunch against Earth’s table, falling to the
Force of gravity that coaches the wind
An invisible ring master
Like so many of the forces
These grown children now face

But it will smile, even in defeat,
At the example it has set
For those that know this poem.