future

moon,

in the sugar

 maple grove it is cold

 enough to thin

 blood.  And it’s now

I start thinking

 of old tap holes,

 those self-sealed stops

 where sap drops

 were the slow departures

of winter, drilled

and spiled

year after year

by a hand growing old

in the boiling glow.

That old grove, after 150 years,

finally yielded to a simple

winter, a simple cold,

 and was cut down

the old fashioned way,

sawn

 and planed and joined

  and glossed to this

tabled surface.  And on certain

Sundays it holds its own,

 this sweet sap,

cooked down

 years ago

   to liquid amber.

Maybe only you and I

can appreciate

the irony of it:

the clay cup

 of warm syrup 

once again breathing,

  poured out

  in a glint of March

 morning.

Knowing where the surface

of it began, the hand

that pushed the plane

 now pours the syrup.

And later, because

everything is dressed

on tables like these,

Easter feasts—quiet teas—

and, in the end, he,

lies flat against it all.

Moon, I want to see

  your night face

step out

of a shadow

as though we’d

planned it

the whole time

as though chance

were two held dice

never thrown

but rather dropped

ungambled,

the amber catching

in the fire you’ve been

cupping all this time

waiting

 in his, mine,

 naked wake

this fist, this cloth

this lavender

 wash

and pockets

 turned out,

sticky spiles

in a dish among

cones, among combs,

among all the things

he’d pocket

as he gathered

 February

and lugged it back

to a steaming shed

   coaxing a miracle

from the solice

of it.