You tell her you love her in the long hours you spend hunched over your desk
Learning their names in latin:
Acer Rubrum, Acer saccharum, Acer saccharinum
(They too sound like poetry in your mouth).
The names run over your tongue, minty like black birch (Betula lenta) just under the bark.
You spell your love to her in the boot treads you leave,
Drawing lines across fresh snow, leaving traces of you in the mud,
Keeping the company of the prints of white tailed deer and New England cottontail.
You whisper you love her like a prayer when you see news
Of fires in California and Australia and record
Hot days at the poles,
You tell her you love her when she turns your back tan from long days in the sun
You love her with every stroke of your shovel into rich soil
Every hole you dig to nurture the beginnings of another living thing.
You tell her you love her with the stroke of your pen against paper that used to be a tree
Addressing the envelope to your town hall, state representatives, national congress
And when your feet fall on asphalt streets
In time with the other feet, lined up footstep to footstep, shoulder to shoulder
Waving blue-green signs and singing for a future
You know she hears you murmur,
Low under the rhythm of the crowd, that you love her.
And if you listen close,
Under the shouting of Jays in the fall,
Or the rush of a pregnant river at snow-melt
The chickadees and nuthatches outside your window at sunrise
The red maples blushing with joy every springtime
She’s saying “I love you too.”
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