Golden Grevillea

How does she contrive
to reinvent herself,
year after year?
This glory
dripping from her limbs
like combs of honey
half-congealed,
dusted with fresh pollen
as a vernal gift to botany,
creating rich organic textures
entomologists would envy:
tendrils curling from the blooms
antennae wrought with goldsmith's wire;
flower-caterpillers, cilia
gilded and exotic, clinging
where there once were leaves,
spring after spring,
in opulent reprise…
 
This rhapsody in amber
that enchants the passer-by,
filmed by the retina
as visual cry,
in mellow cadences of joy
like voices from the hive of time -
what effort does it cost
the tree, what alchemy?

There, beyond her shoulder,
stands her echo -
Danae's lambent sister,
shimmering upon a ridge
across the river,
limbs outspread
in fans of beaten gold
that frame a universal
paradigm: greeting,
salutation, welcome…
gestures all can recognise -
and within the archetype,
the lifted arms,
relinquishing,
fingertips surrendering to air,
the sign
that means goodbye…



Prized for the beautiful grain
of its wood, this tree is also
known as Silky Oak.