The maples are a little late this year.
Most neighbor trees have already undressed.
I was seasonally certain my maples’ cue would come.
Raining it was when I first caught the change:
drooping, drenched green, destined for crimson.
What glory in damp foliage?
My maples will redeem themselves.
Today God’s sun announced show and tell:
brilliant sun-dried copper, gold, yellow, red.
Worth a birthday-like November celebration.
I wait for dusk to descend
when the solar light slips below my western view,
anticipating its precious prelude to sunset
when the low-slanting rays flood leafy jewels
with dancing light unfolding into twilight.
This “Sunset Maple”, aptly named,
deserving front-lawn status
while Japanese maples seem far away
in their back-yard grove.
Sunset comes in each life’s calendar.
In mine the late afternoon glow is sensed and seen
and felt and perhaps even feared.
Yet the incredible color splashing against autumn clouds
bespeaks a promise proffered by our rotating globe
carrying you and me and all in this real world
not west to the sunset;
rather, as each new morning attests,
toward the sunrise.
For Barbara on her Birthday 2004
