The maple tree within our yard,
Which stands as sentry to our home,
For forty years protected us
From wind and sun and thunderstorm.
He towers high above the ground,
Seventy feet at my best guess;
Though rarely making any sounds
His specter is our constant guest.
Between his height and girth around
I estimate that he might be
Perhaps, as old as eighty years,
A venerable age for maple trees.
The tree was there before the house,
Sprouting first on marshy fen.
He somehow dodged the builders’ saws,
As workers cut down nearby friends.
Storms have taken major tolls,
Like lightning strikes ten years ago,
Which sheared away a major limb
That left him standing gracelessly
Bereft of nature’s symmetry.
The wound exposed his inner wood,
A place where bugs which bring disease
Can burrow underneath his bark,
To dine with a voracious greed.
But despite this loss of loveliness
Birds and squirrels and other things
Ignore the damage happily
To play within his canopy.
My landscape gardener said to me,
Those trees like him should be cut down,
Making room for younger growth;
Without much thought I turned him down.
For I have reached those promised years
Which G‑d allots to average men;
And I have felt cruel nature’s sting
That left me hurt on broken wing.
Everything deserves a chance
To seek a life that it finds best,
To venture up toward greater heights
Despite a past which scars its flesh.
Survivors from a different time,
Bending when we have a need,
Standing firm against the winds,
We’re still here - my friend and me.
- Finding the Light of G‑d, pages 158-159