Learning to Love a Tree

I
Tulip poplars shadowed the creek where I played in childhood. I didn't know their name; I never looked up. I aimed at minnows with my BB gun, read my book, played cowboys and Indians. Only as a grown-up, wandering the creek on a visit from home elsewhere, did I realize some tree flowered and dropped beautiful sherbet-colored teacups to the ground and water below.

But I didn't know its name.

II 
I learned to recognize tulip poplars here Sewanee, where they tower over my house, attract lightning strikes, weaken and die, lean with tornadic winds I have learned to endure, attract woodpeckers, threaten to flatten my house, and me.

III
At the lake I have grown to love tulip poplars. There, they do not threaten me or my property. Instead, the bud, and flower, and leaf, and shimmer in summer wind and sun, turning wind into whispering or rustling of yards and yards and yards of satin flung, shaken, crinkling.

IV
Today, I celebrate the fleur-de-lis unfolding of leaf. 

V
Welcome, springing.