Thirteen Ways to Enjoy, Honour and View a Maple Tree

I
The pleasant, green flavoured light
Sifts down through the top
Of my favourite maple tree.
II
Only the maple tree, and perhaps a birch,
could maintain its honour and dignity
Disrobed and naked it remains tall
And at attention.
III
Branches die while supple leaves flourish
The helicopters must find a place to land
To start their own maple trees.
IV
The pregnant sun, stillborn energy, suffocated leaves.
In sleeping death, the maple tree is made king
With robes of scarlet, gold, copper, bronze,
While his blood is drained and spilt.
V
Emerald leaf-feathered, glowing in high noon
The maple tree says, "Enjoy me or I will suffer.
(To this end was I grown.)"
VI
As if encapsulated, preserved in melting, dripping crystal
THe maple tree wades through the storm.
VII
The maple tree knows
That I know
That he knows,
In his old, old wisdom,
Much more than I.
VIII
He is a thousand species of animal.
The maple tree-squirrel.
The maple tree-cardinal.
The maple tree-chipmunk.
The maple tree-ant?
IX
If you know where to look, the maple tree can be seen,
Drowned on a hill
Amid a sea of brothers.
X
The trapped energy, heat
And soul
Of the maple tree
Are all at once released in brilliance.
XI
A maple leaf makes a marvelous mask
For a child of the wood.
XII
A regal man with sparkling eye
Cool, green silken robes fly and toss about him
In the warm spring breeze.
Thick brown hair atop his head
And a short brown beard on his strong jaw.
He guards the Wood, the valiant Maple.
XIII
In the quiet cathedral of the wood
The warm earth is baptized
In the supernatural green
Of the maple tree's stained glass canopy.