The Norway Maple (Toronto)

Acer platanoides, chief of the urban arbour:

Like Sweno, the Norwayan king,

A stalwart bushy conqueror

Whose tale the poets sing.

He crossed the sea, invited,

In the reign of P.E.T.

To settle in the City blighted

By the scourging Elm disease.

Standing sentry over lawns and yards,

Limescent in the Springmer sun,

He shaded all the boulevards

As once the umbrous Elms had done.

Hearty he grew, and proud,

For did not the nation’s flag bear his noble face?

And yet he could not please the crowd

Who said this land was not his place.

A healthy wood, the ecologists said,

Forms a living web whose bonds are torn

When invades the foreign-bred;

Native Nature felled, they mourn.

The hipsters pined for the ancient Oak;

And denizens of the southern Beaches—

Academics and artsy, cultured folk—

Liked their garden dinners ‘neath the Ashes.

As the Viking of the land of his birth

Knew monk and peasant feared his call,

So the mighty Maple bloomed with mirth

As the City’s soil came under his thrall.

“The cold freezes not my vital juices;

My roots with relish drink the salt of the road;

How eager they bought into my ruses

As the cane-farmers welcomed the Queensland toad.”

And so Toronto upon the Lake

Was left without a choice to make;

If green the City desired to be,

Submit it must to the Norway Maple tree.