Sugaring Season - 1. Sugaring Season

Drill a hole

far enough, not too deep,

and insert the clean tap, angled up,

to catch the new nectar surging from its long rest

diverting it to one’s own purpose,

collecting the spring’s sweet

promises.

~ ~ ~

On a good day,

the sun rises over a cold landscape

to bathe the hillside in clear, golden warmth,

hitting the treetops first,

then warming their trunks and feet;

After breakfast, we ride out

under cloudless blue skies,

in my father’s rusty, trusty ’49 F-5

to gather fast running sap from trees old enough

they might have voted for Wendell Wilkie;

From the roadside we wade

through snow drifted over ditches and holes,

sometimes leaving us waist chest deep

while keeping our buckets upright,

to fill the ten-gallon galvanized cream cans in the truck bed;

Riding to the sugarhouse

on broken-springed seats,

we empty our haul into the stainless holding tank

that started life in a milkhouse

four miles up and over the mountain

And later carry armloads of wood

to feed insatiable, roaring flames

beneath the sluiced evaporator pans

that gleam faintly in a dim,

almost subterranean, light

all rewarded with mom’s raised doughnuts

dipped in new syrup

when the afternoon sun

dips below the treeline

on a good day.

~ ~ ~

Steam billows

from roof vents propped open

above furiously boiling sap,

while in and out of the cloud moves the sugarer

to tend the fire and test the samples

as he waits to draw off

his treasure.

~ ~ ~

Come, with the sun

and by its warmth and ardor freely flow

as long as its beneficence can shine;

your riches run

until its rays are on the wane

beyond the western windowpane.

Despite the snow

one’s inborn nature follows its design

in mechanisms tricky to explain,

yet simple, though,

wherein the fountain is begun

by which cold winter is undone.

Let warmth combine

with crystal skies, a treasure to obtain,

a harvest we may share with everyone

should we incline,

of laughter and a sweet hello

and memory of blaze’s glow.

When shadows stain

the mountainside and sunbeams there are none

we take our rest and let the embers slow

and silence reign

beneath the moon, when we refine

your riches shared, and now made mine.

~ ~ ~

While we work,

friends and strangers stop by

to stand beneath the dripping roof beams

and accept hospitality in strong coffee

flavored with some not-quite-ready syrup

as they watch fire and man

make magic.

~ ~ ~

No substance known can be refined as sweet

As stolen glances from your dancing eyes

which make to tease and tempt and tantalize

a heart half-built, unfinished, incomplete

without a draft ambrosial and discreet,

enough to hasten happy, fervent sighs

in contemplation of my final prize,

encompassing your taste, your scent, your heat.

Yet even more I’d like to see you fed

with sugar from my own rock maple made

to captivate your tongue and lips so red,

such rainbow-colored kisses, unafraid

of all the pleasure promised in their stead

when springtime ‘gainst the winter is arrayed.

~ ~ ~

That small jar

full of amber sweetness

distilled from the maple’s offerings

connects me to summer afternoons with my dad

spent flushing lines and clearing birches

in preparation for

next year’s run.