The Love Tree
Version 1
Love is when
you carve your sweetheart’s name
into the old schoolyard maple tree
and then the city cuts it
down because it’s full of disease.
Version 2
I am love,
I am a tree
in the schoolyard,
look at me.
Carve my bark,
cut me here,
to save your name
for years and years.
But I am sick,
my leaves are brown.
The City wants
to cut me down.
I look around at other trees
but only I have tree disease.
Now you’re grown,
you don’t come ‘round.
Your loving gaze
Starves my crown.
I’m old, I droop,
I might have blight.
My woody core
protests your flight.
I am love,
I am a tree
in the schoolyard,
look at me.