My father climbs the maple each July
to escape his visiting in-laws, ascending
with clippers, saw, rope, jar of tar,
high in the heat pruning and painting, skills
he learned working high school summers
as a tree surgeon’s apprentice. The cutting
gives life to that maple. In October it blooms
leaves larger than my hands—red, yellow,
orange float to the ground as if rocking
in a hammock. I rake and wheelbarrow
them to the backyard, then burn the color
into black smoke while my father sits alone
under the bare branches, shivering
in the chill, watching me incinerate his art.
