We always called maple seeds whirlybirds,
just as we always did so many things, as children.
We liked them best when they were yellow—
when tossed alone, in twos, or even bunches—
they came swirling down. Too green,
they fell with a plop. Too brown, too thin to fly,
or they fell apart, exposing their spider veins
like the vertical strings on a badminton racket.
If we had rain, mush, beside the welcome mat.
But this morning, sailing swiftly by my window,
catching the light—white and lovely,
delicate of drift—landing in a driveway crack
or in gutters in the fertile loam that once was
other maple leaves, those ’copters from the sky—
unshaken in purpose—became a circle of trees.

From Better With Friends (Rank Stranger Press, 2009).
This poem first appeared in The TMP Irregular.
Used here with the author’s permission.