The Seventeenth Day of May

Grow maples in me this grow-maple day;
I lie in the long chair and wait your coming.
Spin from branches heavy with fruit of leaves
My sudden seeds, my one-wings, turning, turning!

Leap in the wind that understands the life:
Land on on my leg and do not slide;
Catch in the ready furrows of my hair—I say
I have no pride.

For in me all the broad and murmuring branches
Wait but to hear it spoken.
The porch, the chair, the gutter will not take you.
But I am open.

Heads of life, stretched to the shape of flight,
Plunge to my upturned palm, and with good reason:
My earth, my rain, my sun, my shade will grow you.
Let your season bring me into season.

Margaret Rockwell Finch