Rootstock

Years ago, I couldn't understand why "old folks" would expend the effort to plant striplings they would never experience as fully grown trees. Age has made me wiser. 

Rootstock

His yard stretched like a piece 

of undulating prairie

without the limb-shedding oak

to anchor it until the owner,

ancient as the felled tree,

tacked the land firmly to the earth,

planting two saplings. Next door

college-age me could not comprehend

why the pensioner turned

the clay-heavy soil to settle striplings

he would never nurture to maturity.

                         *

Now beneath crisp autumn winds,

I dirty my own knees and strain

my back for a pair of young crabapples.

Breaking up ground, wrestling

with root balls, and wrapping trunks

against foraging deer.

I pause to unknot the kinks in my neck,

and glimpse a young neighbor

surveying my work, certain

of my daftness.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor