THE SILVER QUEEN MAPLE TREE

I've stopped along my garden pathway and am looking up, way up, into the wide, leafy canopy of the Silver Queen Maple tree.

The Little Tikes swing hanging on a limb is always ready for one of the grandkids.

The robin family is building a nest in the crook of a sturdy limb.

I have a new appreciation for this beautiful tree since we cut down the Hawthorn tree giving us an unobstructed view of the Maple. June is our month of unpredictable weather with lots of wind and summer thunder storms and with that came the most amazing movement in the Maple which we would observe while eating dinner on the sun deck. Out of these evenings come the following sentiments.

THE DANCE OF THE SILVER QUEEN MAPLE

As the morning sun climbs in to the summer sky, it's penetrating rays filter amongst the foliage of the Maple tree shivering from the night's chill, casting dappled shade on the garden floor.

Long limbs of this stately tree stretch high and wide to absorb the light and warmth which through an amazing process create energy for growth and fluid motion and also exchange the vital gases which we in turn assimilate for life and breath to observe this unfolding phenomena.

The air warms, adding a delicate breeze, whispering the joy of a new day through a million leaves. There is a hush of anticipation as on the horizon, white, cumulus clouds are bubbling and billowing, creating imaginary pets or monsters in the sky. Will their breath just ruffle the Maple leaves or begin to exercise the limbs for an evening performance of a midsummer's dance?

At high noon a verdigris green bell clangs on the sun deck announcing a crescendo in the breeze, furling the Maple branches this way and that, frenzied in their rehearsal, or for me an afternoon matinee.

With a box seat view the early evening dance mesmerizes me - a ballet perhaps, as my imagination interprets the creative, fluid, adagio movements of those long, lean limbs glissading back and forth in a darkening stage back lit with lightning strobes.

Rumbles of thunder echo around the surrounding hills, adding depth and passion to the music of the wind as with increased intensity the whole tree comes alive in symphonic movement.

In choreographed rhythm the Maple limbs sway and bend and sweep to the right and then to the left, like ballerinas pirouetting across the sky, lifting their skirts to expose silver petticoats. The dance sets repeat over and over with hushed shudders as the strength of the wind decrescendos to fluttering fingertips, and then with a gust, builds and rushes through the tree with an allegro whoosh, that only one atune to the voice of God will interpret as Hallelujahs, and feel His breath that fuels the midsummer eve dance of the Silver Queen Maple.