Tree & Me: Two Old Queens

Tree & Me is a storytelling series from Leaf & Limb. In each issue, we feature a personal story about trees from one of our readers. This month, our story was written by Rosalind from Cleveland, Ohio.

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Two Old Queens

Every February and March, I find myself looking out at the two red maples in my front yard. They were planted long before I arrived here, in this quiet inner-ring suburb of Cleveland. Old queens. Steady witnesses. Keepers of time.

They remind me of where my relationship with trees truly began.

When I was a child, in our small school, winter did not always mean desks and books. On certain mornings, Glenn, our teacher, would hitch a trailer to the back of his tractor. Six of us, bundled and small, climbed in with metal buckets and a great steel drum. We rode slowly through more than one hundred acres of mostly forested land, stopping wherever the sugar maples stood waiting.

Each tree offered its gift. Drip by drip. Quiet generosity.

We poured the clear, sweet sap from hanging buckets into our own, then into the great drum on the trailer. I never saw how the heavy drum reached the fire or became syrup. That part was beyond us.

Now, many years later, when I taste maple syrup from a farmer’s market bottle, I taste more than sweetness. I taste memory. I taste winter air. I taste the kindness of a tree that gives without asking. And I remain grateful for the privilege of this intimate relationship with one of the most generous of all trees, the maple.

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Have your own tree story?

Do you have a tree that holds a special place in your heart? Maybe it’s a childhood climbing tree, a backyard favorite, or one you planted in memory of someone you love.

Please share your story with us to celebrate the powerful connection between people and trees. You can do so by filling out the form below. Each month, we will select a new story to be featured in this “Tree & Me” series.