Sugaring Redux

for Devin Corbin and Joan Menefee
Last drop,
cold small globe,
your leave-taking
of the tree slowed
on the metal spout
that funnels a runnel
of sap into the bucket.
On the spile’s lip you
hang at the end
of the day like baby
drool—gravid, sweet,
glacial potentiality
desiring gravity, eager
to run with this coming
of spring. I find you
in the first rays
stopped in your path,
you the last at day’s end;
you waited all night
in an orrery of some
system beyond our
knowing in this grove,
points plotted, orbits
like swallows
in meadows
and the fire
beneath the kettle
kept aglow always
the daystar’s proxy
till it’s return
and you fall away
with your brethren
sap planets plopping
into the pail
first drop today.

Sean Hill
“Sugaring Redux” first appeared in Tin House Issue #39, Volume 10, Number 2: Spring 2009.