Faith and the Silver Maple

Daily we suffer discomfort that makes
us grow like some trees which would never sport
a twin trunk unless they’d first been snapped at
the base as the youngest of saplings, crushed
under foot or purposely pruned, roots left
to dry, die by any other means that
would sever a  stem down near ground level,
where it would sprout two efforts instead of
one and grow neglected against great odds
every season, each year for eighty years,
standing at the end of my back yard on
the fence line to hearten and remind me.