when poplar dreams
by rlnimages
On brow of hill, in winter’s chill
young poplar sleeps and dreams.
From root to tendril, memories still
flow in nurturing streams.
At the gateway of remembrance
stands the memory
of a touch -
warm fingers curved by kindness
and shrouded by time
drawing the poplar from crevice into world.
It saw them first -
their strolling gait,
wandering thoughts and eyes -
a couple and yet not.
Hiding from his trained and canny eye,
it softly called to her.
Her mother’s heart and mother’s ear
heard
and paused
and turned
and held the sprig from where she stood.
He too, was paused and turned
by her currents of concern,
his eyes following her heart’s reach.
The corners of his mind
expected a child’s hand
to emerge and enfold
itself in hers
but found instead a seedling
trapped in stone.
Her heart stretched itself,
embracing the seedling
and him,
drawing them together
until his hand encircled the sprig,
and moved by her heart’s desire,
began to work it free.
Her wordless laugh told him “Let my clever fingers try”
as her warm hand laid across his
and gently brushed his own aside
to enfold
and tug
and comfort
and coax -
and just before his smirk emerged
to brush aside her smile,
a baby poplar was birthed
from its cramped and stony womb.
Hand of his and hand of hers
cradled the sprig in swaddling fingers.
Thoughts of sudden parenthood
paused their hearts and linked their eyes.
In her soft voice came awareness to his ear,
woven into the words
“You know he will grow beyond our hands ...”
A silent shake of his head
tossed his eyes toward the hill’s brow,
trailing her eyes after.
“He’ll be all alone there …
… but likely trod on here”
came back her accord borne on the breeze.
While his heel and rooting fingers
shaped a divot into a hearth,
a cradle of loess and loam,
she cupped poplar to her –
full bosom’s warmth and body’s shadow
already mothering the young sprig.
With bed prepared, she scooped him in
and tucked him tight against the coming chill,
then bade him sweetly sleep.
And to make gentle his slumber
they sat and spoke
of other springtimes,
and other childhoods and sheltering trees
of questions, hopes and happiness,
of little bits of life that lay in wait
and call to them from cracks in stone,
and of traces of new life now peering
through the seams
between their interwoven fingers.
Young poplar stands on brow of hill,
now cloaked against the winter's chill -
unfolds sweet tales to clinging snow,
soft songs that only lovers know.
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