The Poetry of Ellin Anderson

MAPLE-KEY SONG

Ellin Anderson

That maple tree, in glaze of ice,
Came springing from a strange device:
A trick, concealing something big
Within a little whirligig

Of withered years' deceptive brown,
A wingnut that went swirling down
To land, inglorious, on the lawn,
Expecting to be trampled on.

It turns itself into the soil,
Thereafter, into something royal
That in a spring forever sweet
Threw golden flowers at my feet

So that I might remember, when
The tree and I would meet again:
King of the woods, a canopy
Where I would wed my prince-to-be.

This is a song for little things
That fall regardless of their wings,
That rise despite an early fall
To take delight in standing tall,

And now, whenever storms enfold
That height in diamonds of the cold,
The maple is a chandelier
To light our winter revels here.

© 2011 by Ellin Anderson. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be copied or used in any way
without written permission from the author.

 
St. Patrick's Day
Seabrook
Tiger and Blue Jewel

Winter's Hill
November in Camelot

Wassail Song
Veleda
Cinderella
The Rooster at Midsummer
Liberty Enlightens the People

The Leap
The Goldfinch
Three Bears
Song of the Lily
White Tree at Twilight
The Christmas Tree

Song-Sparrow
Grand Bois du Nord
The Owl
Moth Summer
Verticordia
The Little God of Joy
Pear-Petals
Photographing the Moon
A Rabbit
Rose, Do You Know
The Two Pining Bachelors
Lorelei
Persephone

Avalon
The Harvest Chorus
The Maple Mask
Ghost Cardinal

The Little Heath-Rose
Found
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Song for the Harp

The Spinner
 
The Prayer of Cephalus
Circe and Ulysses
The Black Arts
Tristan and Isolde & Jupiter's Two Casks
Nectanebus

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More Poems by Ellin Anderson

The Little Mermaid
Vermeer
Anne's Hearth