Category Archives: Maple
Maple Blaze
summer warmth departs
maple retreats in a blaze
time to hunker down
The Lost Dress
My lovely dress of golden leaves
Is tattered now, and worn,
The wind has warned – no more reprieves,
This time the leaves get shorn.
I hold on tight with all my might,
While gusts and gales rip past,
They tear my dress, and though I fight,
I’m nearly bare at last.
I shiver and the last leaves quiver,
Hanging by a thread,
Until they loosen, blowing whither
They know not, and spread.
My golden dress is on the ground,
For all to trod upon,
And scuffing feet will swish it ’round,
While gusts blow ’til it’s gone.
A New Bird
About 100 ft. from my house stands a maple that has seen better days. The woodpeckers peck holes into the trunk, and it’s a wonder that the tree hasn’t lost more limbs in the recent windstorms.
Still, I love to see the woodpeckers, and I always have my camera handy for bird sightings. When I spotted this one on the maple this morning, I grabbed the camera and rushed out onto the deck to snap a photo. I closed the sliding door quietly.
“Please don’t fly away until I get a picture,” I whispered.
He didn’t fly away, so I snapped some more. Still he didn’t fly.
“This is great,” I thought. The squirrels were chattering noisily just then, and I assumed that the woodpecker hadn’t heard me tiptoeing out onto the deck.
But then I thought, “That’s strange. He should have flown by now. Or at least pecked at the bark. But he’s just sitting there. Maybe he’s sick.”
I brought the camera in and uploaded the photos onto the laptop. Then I could see the bird more clearly. I wasn’t sure what kind it was. Maybe not a pileated woodpecker, after all. He seemed to have morphed into something else.
A broken off branch surrounded by the maple’s tears?
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