Sugar on Snow
Forty damn gallons
of sap for one gallon sweet.
Cold spring’s industry
works dilute joy from bare trees.
In Florida: oranges.
Matthew Wright– lowercase paradise
This tanka is also on display as part of Montpelier’s PoemCity project. Over 200 Vermont poets have their work shown on the shop windows downtown during April, anyone who can get there should.
psalm 179, oil painting by Roger Vincent Jasaitis, RVJart.com
Roger Vincent Jasaitis 
Can’t believe you used the word DAMN…..
Short for damnation…it was Matthew’s word anyway 🙂
Yer startin’ to get to me Roger. And why would that sugar house be at the bottom of a hill? (Yep, 40 damn gallons per gallon got to get there.) (I miss my orlandos and temples. Damn Florida freezes.)
Not many sugarhouses like this one anymore. They’ve all gone over to plastic tubing to collect the sap. You usually only see buckets on the flat or by roads.