CREAMY YELLOW CATTALAYA WITH PURPLE FRINGE, photography and paintography by Michael (miguel) Forbus TAPPING THE SUGAR MAPLE Today we go tap the sugar maple There is a chill in the air We, bundled up and distracted Are impervious to the cold As we traipse through the woods I notice that the giant rhododendrums are going the way of the compost to sleep, Another year gone But the sap from the sugar maple And you are making the syrup in the old kitchen You stir and stir and it never sticks The house smells of sweetness and fire I am at my keyboard listening to opera And the south has its hold on you And I invent another life One that I can dream about We walk tapping the drains in the trees And I wonder if the tree feels the mordida, The little bite that gives us sweetness We hang the buckets to catch the droplets Sometimes when we do this chore, the droplets fall from my eyes at another year gone And they go so swiftly now, my dove I drag my feet to slow the days I am selfish; I want more days and nights beside you, with the quiet music of the night And the sweet smell of your neck The scent of work and sweetness You never seem to age, your eyes always clear But as I sit in my solitude Tapping away at the keys Thinking of all my heart has endured Until now Sometimes I feel as if the drainpipes we hammer into the sugar maple have been tapped into my heart And the sap is my blood, the blood of days I have wasted, the years I have burned through So I tap the keys and make my life up I invent the story with the happy ending While listening to ballad after ballad, Love song followed by another I have made poor choices and I rue those days Of all the things that I have forgotten I wish those days would fly from me Like the red-tailed hawk soars So I write these sonnets and place myself Into the arms of an imagined beloved Our eyes cannot leave the others And the fire burns, as does the fire that sweetens the syrup I know one day soon they will drench my Johnnycakes and sweeten our lips And so help me I cannot help but lean over And taste your mouth of berry stained lips And as we kiss, sometimes I need guidance to Come back to where I sit at the hand-hewn table I get lost in some astral plane and had you not the interstellar thread that connects your heart to mine I would float away with sweetness of the sugar maple on my lips and the thoughts of the giant rhododendroms coming in the spring when you also blossom The south holds you and the mountains Surround me and could I float down the river Tonight I would launch my craft and float to you and taste the syrup of your lips and lose myself in your delicate and inviting eyes But again, I make my life up I invent it with the keyboard And sometimes I believe it will come true As I write I believe it is as true as the air you breathe Copyright by Miguel Forbus, july 2007 Paintography and photography and poetry by Michael (Miguel) Forbus