Ode

I planted a river birch--
My baby-- just where the sun would
burn through early evenings
if we sat out back.
It was two switches really,
five feet tall and no bigger around than my wrist.

In April I dug it in and for two years
carried umbrellas out for shade.
We sat out front when August baked the back of the house.
But all that time she was
setting in that long root and sending out feelers
I found them trailing along an inch
Below the surface when I planted my herb garden.

In three years I had my shade,
a bower as tall as my two-story house.
double trunked with graceful branches
that hugged the Kansas wind
and danced like Martha Graham.
Her bark peeled back revealing white
skin and the leaves dropped early
making gold carpet of my patio well before the first freeze.

At age seven she was majestic;
I had to find shade-loving plants for the west bed
And trim the lower branches so the mower could get through.
Evenings we clustered beneath her
or moved the chairs out so we could see the stars.
One November a sleet storm
glazed her to glass and I worried
when the wind rattled her crystal limbs.
She bent low but did not break.
My baby.

So we moved away
And I left her in the care of strangers.
Once in a while I drive by the old house
And see her waving to me above the roof.
I always wave back.