The Offering

Outside my door grows a lilac

planted 86 years ago,

a venerable tree, gnarled with age,

leaning so close to the ground

that it would lie flat

if it were not propped up by sticks.

Every year it blooms.

It puts out leaves and blossoms,

fewer and fewer each spring

but still, there they are,

green and purple, soft and scented,

and I cannot bear the thought,

a thought that comes each time I

look at it, that I must cut down the old tree,

give the new young shoots

that have sprung up from the mother root

a chance of their own to grow up

and out and old.

Maybe next year, I think. Or maybe

in ten years, when I will be 80.

Maybe then the tree and I will

accept the changes age demands.

Now, in the pale spring sunshine,

the new leaves unfurl, the tight buds

set last autumn expand.

Like an old woman who once was

lush and ripe and beautiful,

the tree, remembering, offers

what remains—