Day 2 of 30

SAP

all my life my father has been a hundred-year-old

tree, even in his thirties and forties. always

sturdy and thick-barked and impervious to sway.

his limbs never swinging. his leaves ever brown

and dry. an agro-alarm. he’s always needed to hear

when people are coming close. he’s always needed them

to know whose ground they walk on. whose roots they

stand on. his life a perpetual fall, brisk and

beautiful but not without signs of winter.

and recently, we that used to nest in him,

we his chickadees, who taloned his harsh and hung

upside down and pecked at his bark for years,

searching for sweet, have discovered sap.

it is sticky, and we are concerned

about what has gotten into him.