Making Maple Syrup

A Wedding Poem

I. The Long Wait It takes patience to make syrup from sap. You must tap the right trees at the right time,

but you can’t start with tapping; you must wait out a deep winter freeze, when maples

are dormant, when the forest can feel as if it’s mourning the losses piled up

in previous seasons, loved ones snatched away, relationships wrecked.

II. Seeing the Trees AND the Forest That in-between time—when nights dip below freezing, when days creep above—

can sneak up on you. What starts as providing home-cooked meals,

companionship, comfort against the chill, stirs alchemy.

Crystallized sap and wounded hearts begin to thaw, then flow.

III. Filling the Buckets First you cozy up an Atlantic sunrise from Cadillac’s granite ledges, then wave

farewell to a sinking Western sun from a red corvette cruising up Highway 1.

Tourists mistake you for Hollywood idols. Horseback and hot springs in Costa Rica,

posing as flapper and bow-tied dandy in front of a vintage biplane.

IV. Assembling the Parts Building a home-made evaporator from scratch takes ingenuity: so does blending families;

converting a steel drum into a stove for the boil, trick-or-treating as Pooh and friends; breaking

up firewood for fuel, somehow breaking an ankle in a parking lot to start a romantic weekend;

stovepipe and flue, tacking and rafting. All it takes to fit odd parts together is a little gumption.

V. Up in the Air The sap bubbles away, sweetening the air. Earth, water, fire have given your love texture, life,

and heat, but the sky’s your binding element. Pilot lessons, kites dancing and diving, and one

momentous balloon ride, burners fueling liftoff and a mile-high ascent to pop the question

you both knew was coming. Below, three thrilled balloon chasers,

with Nana and Grampy, follow a shadow the shape of a joyful teardrop.

VI. After the Boil You take care to filter the amber syrup. Catching impurities is crucial for future

enjoyment; then the pouring and storing. You’ve toiled together, boiled together,

blended families, affections, improvising each dicey step of the adventure.

Now you know sap will always flow again, buckets never really empty,

and the sweetness lasts the more you pour into it, the more you share it.