Amandala

Row after perfect row

of blossoms, white

silver bark against 

the muted valley

 

rivers do not flow here

what sustains

is carried in 

 

and yet such 

loveliness

such a scene

of proliferation 

 

I understand the mission

of these trees:

to stand against 

degeneration

 

to astonish

against the mountains

over which

high desert

 

brief in their 

glory, eternal 

in their delicate

yielding

 

the dehiscent 

shell, a declaration

a window opening

the vertigo

of transformation 

 

late summer, autumn

not the cycle’s end 

but a lesson in abscission:  

liberate, renounce

begin again