98poems/bottlebrush

The house I may
move into,
offers me a view
of a young bottle brush,
nothing one would
want to call a tree.
The whole of it revealed
through the small window,
which might one day
be over my desk.

I’m not so bad
at change, but loss
I’ve little tolerance of.
This old mis-shapen
chinaberry hacked back
here and there at some
indifferent landlord’s
whim,
its trunks topped
flat as tables.
And still each spring
they sprout new shoots,
polished leaves a rich
dark green we rarely see,
more branches than
it should ever have to
support, but it is
willing to and does.

That day when we
were wondering
whether to live here,
he lay back, perplexed,
against its trunk,
the oldest, widest one
which has grown parallel
to the ground,
and looking at him
I knew, of course,
we would.

4/24/98