T for Tree

by Virginia Lowe

 

Straight trunk

Typical tree

Outstretched arms

Thick canopy

Leaves trap the sun

brilliant green

Dark brown trunk

A child’s drawing

 

Burnished silver

Polished gum

Dead, but shining

in the morning sun

Froth of regrowth

at its roots

Towers a silver

toasting fork

Branches curve tortuous

weaving and gliding

starting way up

the tall straight trunk

the architecture

fully exposed.

 

Architecture exposed,

even living.

Dull eucalypt green

Narrow leaves

loosely bunched

hang down to escape

the sun’s rays

Trunk bright pink-gold

Burnished by

morning sun

 

Huge animals

that hopped

Egg-laying mammals

with duck bills

The first Europeans

couldn’t believe

their own eyes

Painted what

they longed to see

Dark trunk

outstretched branches

thick canopy

typical (Northern) tree

starting with T.

 

• Submitted in response to Poetry Prompt #2

Virginia says: I spent the first weeks of January in the mountains, Falls Creek (about 40 friends took over a ski lodge). Falls Creek was in the middle of a bushfire about 12 years ago, and is surrounded by bleached white dead trees – sad, but beautiful – and regrowing. I had several phrases in my mind, and the letter T sparked off contemplation about the comparison between Northern and Southern Hemisphere trees, and reactions to them.  It is my usual blank verse, short lines, with some half rhymes thrown in.