Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “The Japanese Red Maple” by Lindsay Soberano Wilson.

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The Japanese Red Maple

By Lindsay Soberano Wilson

As spring was forcing its way from seed

to bud

to flower

all in what felt

like the longest hour

it was also questionable as to whether or not

what was inside

my belly

was growing or dying.

So it became

just another thing

to decipher

like the conversation

with my father

about the frail,

Japanese,

red maple

in my garden

(the one he had planted

in our front yard

the one we had dug up

from my childhood home

the one on Loganberry

–yes, that special one…)

And how we were all unsure

if it would make it this year

because its buds were scarce

branches were empty

and all the while

the other flourishing trees

lined the street

to laugh at me.

“Don’t worry honey.

You can just plant another one,” said dad.

“I don’t want another one.

I want this one,” I whimpered.

I bravely turned

to the Lilac bush

and expressed my fondness

for her return

(somehow it didn’t burn

as badly…).

Months later,

I dug up the roots to make room for new life.

But I have yet to replant

a Japanese red maple.

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Copyright © Lindsay Soberano Wilson

Previously published in Hoods of Motherhood: A Collection of Poems.

Lindsay Soberano Wilson is a teacher and author. “The Japanese Red Maple” from her debut poetry collection Hoods of Motherhood (Prolific Pulse Press, 2023) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Breaking Up With the Cobalt Blues: Poems For Healing (Prolific Pulse Press, 2024), features visual and lyrical poems that find peace in painful, messy, shameful parts of life unearthed at inconvenient times. Casa de mi Corazon: A Travel Journal (2021) explores how her Canadian Jewish identity was shaped by travel (2021).

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