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Click title to download microchap
American Linden
NatureHills.com
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CITY LINDEN TREE
A solitary tree, you stand alone
hidden in the garden we own,
far from any forest of ancestors,
far from your linden sisters
to caress you or to dress you
in verdant finery as you grow,
a thing of symmetry and grace
in this simple sacred place.
Rising tall, stately and proud
amid the harshest city sounds-
the muted din of traffic and bustle,
you sing a soft and soothing rustle.
With urban wind in your leaves
you lift your limbs and reach,
solid and sturdy and steadfast
as seasons to seasons pass.
The fabric of the city all around,
you grace this little plot of ground.
You shade our youth and middle age,
unfathomable and endless change.
In old age we’ll repose upon this lawn
and here you’ll remain when we are gone.
FIFTEEN
All I ever had was time.
You and I should not be sad.
Fifteen summers' days were mine.
The sun and wind and sand were fine,
though sailing boats I never had.
All I ever had was time.
I never asked the sun to shine
and yet it warmed the endless sand,
while fifteen summers' days were mine.
My body's old before its time.
I'm sometimes bitter, sometimes mad,
but all I ever had was time.
The loss of autumn gold reminds
I was not yours to keep or spend.
These fifteen summers' days were mine.
THE ORCHARDIST’S SON
Up the road from our house was an orchard.
One summer I dated the orchardist’s son, a boy
whose soul was simple and sweet as apples,
whose being was steadfast as the trees.
But at sixteen I was too complicated and confused.
It was a short lived affair, never full of promise.
It was one short summer in my youth,
gone when the apples hung heavy on the trees.
But, even now, when I bite into a crisp Macintosh,
I think of Sandy’s kisses.
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dandelion
pesky little weed
peppers my lawn
refuses to be mown
quickly goes to seed
spring until fall it
clings to my foundation
earns its reputation
garishly audacious I call it
as a bouquet it's truly grand
when offered by a child's hand
or as a fluffy parachute
riding on midsummer's wind
ON ICE
Far out on the frozen bay
where we sailed in summer
we hold hands and slide along
testing the truth of its firmness.
We inch forward, weightless
where ducks dipped for fish in fall
bravely toward the broad lake
miles of ice safe before us.
We stand in the smooth stillness
where even lovers cannot quarrel
sending our laughter into the cold
joining our souls in the depths below.
DAZED
This is how it was.
I stood there useless
dazed by the fury
of your birth
when someone gently
steered me into a chair
next to your mother
and handed you to me.
You were wrapped up
like a little burrito
in a soft striped blanket.
Your face was wizened
and your nose was off kilter.
We just sat there
while the world changed
because you were in it
and I held the weight of you
carefully in my arms.
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Sara Quayle © 2021
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Sara Quayle a is a native Vermonter whose writing is often inspired by her love of nature and experiences as a mother, daughter and pediatrician, as well as a passion for social justice. She enjoys the outdoors, gardening, theater, reading extensively and watercolor painting.