the weed trees want all the sun
"Life is the default"
~ Clark Blaise, Meagre Tarmac

Manitoba Maple has a desperation matching my own. 

cut off a branch and it grows a trident. cut off 
a limb and it ages like eyebrows, like ears. 

cut off a bough and a sudden proliferation –

from the trunk a bush. runners say split up, sprout. 
seeding's heavy. under the tomato crop, keys pop.

among beans and onions, two-leaf maple canopies.

the row of dead stumps, stunted attempts 
are twisted into the chain-link. they awaken

their small flags of green, refusals to surrender.

© Pearl Pirie