There’s sap in these hills,

the sugar maples

just beginning to run.

The farmers have them hooked

up with plastic tubing

so it looks like the trees

are giving blood or worse,

stuck on life support.

They get so cranky

these farmers for

the two or so weeks

while the run lasts –

twenty hour days

boiling it all down.

I’m not sure what they’d get

if they boiled me down,

but I know it would not be

anything near as good

as maple syrup.