I know a tree whose apples are more sweet
and nourishing and fair than any other:
a person it's a privilege to meet,
a maker, a maintainer, and a mother.
Her branches bring delight to every day
from each repeating month that I remember:
we lie beneath her blossomed boughs in May
and eat her rosy apples in September.
Yet as she gives, she lives as more than merely
a giving tree, that spends itself in giving:
for still she's not consumed, though shining yearly
with ever-fiercer fires of joyous living;
her roots in earth, and sunlight on her brows
and every blessèd child beneath her boughs.