yew drupes

Canada Yew, ripe drupes . . .  (Taxus canadensis) Native of North America.
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Here's a little narrative poem from the Fireweed Collection of
Songs of Love and Loss; it's takes its name from the tree:


Yew

Some names we know to be ancient,
rooted in some unknown distant past which
continues to bubble forth into the here and now
like a spring,

even though we know not whence
the water might have come, or how
long it might have been under way.


Yew...

Perhaps it is true:
Women do not read books the way men do,
imagining themselves to be more someplace
else than where they actually are, only to go
on to author more books about, say, the healing plants,
which to some might seem overly rigid or cautious.

     She offered him a ripe red fruit to try,
     commenting on its evident toxicity.

     He laughed, slightly concerned,
     as he tasted the sweet pulp
     under his tongue and spat
     out the poison pit.



Yew...

as day comes to equal night, with the lucently scarlet red
cup-shaped arils which only the yew brings forth,
he would sometimes imagine her voice
again, and the dress, as he frequently did,
as gently flowing water, eyes tightly closed,

seeing clearly this deep ground of leaves,
a dark green which seems to protect and set
the curious fruits apart for all to question
and, for some, secretly admire.





(Photograph was made Saturday, the 27th of Saturday, 2003)


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Photograph by Cliff Crego © 2003 picture-poems.com

(created:
X.5.2003)