Neither Here nor There

My mother planted Japanese maple,
but she never said just why.

The deep red blades
like silk to flesh
are a mockery of wars past.
The tree in silhouette against
a burning sunset, alone
the only one of its kind
to see the sun swing low over Cecil
droops
as if it were at home
but missing somewhere else –
beautiful, forlorn in desire unfulfilled.
If I could look into its eyes, what
whispers would that sapling soul let slip?

My mother planted Japanese maple,
but she never said just why.

I sometimes dream in Spanish
and russet tones of perpetual autumn
as if my life should be more wide
or more austere.
I wake up to find that I am
where I have always been.
This sunset over Cecil
and that distant dusk of my past
over Andalucia –
awe and misery are the same in all places.
I am foreign nowhere.
I am only foreign
if you want me to be.

My mother planted Japanese maple,
but she never said just why.

These thoughts should be discarded –
that is possible.
That color, the hang of the branches
the lightness of bark,
the scent of it, the feel of it,
the caress of leaves or the unique voice
given it by wind:
these things, perhaps, are the reasons.
There was a stir of the soul, a love
like a flash of lightning,
anode to cathode,
and both were lost in the gentle rumble
of their distant thunder
And now, like soul mates, they cohabit,
both unchanged, yet undeniably different.
As the sun swings low over Cecil
they stand on common ground, content
never to acknowledge it.

My mother planted Japanese maple,
but she never said just why.