Japanese Maple in January

All spring she brushed aside my arguments
that it was cheaper and would make more sense
to fill the yard with hardy Yankee stock.
She bought her maple, junked the chain-link fence,
and tried to start a lawn; our crabby flock
of grackles grew too fat on seed to quarrel.
While masons tamed the mud with slate and rock,
she planted birches, hollies and a laurel.
New pickets kept our neighbors in their place.

October stripped the birches down to bone,
as if to warn the weak. Beside new stone
the pygmy flared with plum and amber lace.
As ice was making oaks bow, crack and groan,
her vision shimmered with a stubborn grace.

A.M. Juster

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Power Fatigue and the Soft Womanhood of Taylor Swift

Bella M. Reyes

Whether you are a fan or foe of Taylor Swift, you cannot deny she is a titan…

Screen-Obsessed and Isolated: New and Notable Books

Mark Bauerlein

As readers of First Things well know, more and more examinations of the threat of technology to…

As Long as You’re Living

Jonathon Van Maren

I first heard Robert Munsch in second grade. Our teacher read his 1986 classic Love You Forever…