Albizia Lebbeck

Nimbused in a cloud of ivory
stamens sprayed from golden sepals,
trailing tasselled foliage, the tree
is summer's reverie, a stranger here,
immense and fair, the fragrance of ambrosia
radiating breath of nectar
through the atmosphere.

The tree is an Albizia Lebbeck from India,
dreaming in its bloodstream of primeval
groves, in its grain inscribing
ancient rubrics for posterity,
insignia and cryptograms of ancestry,
remembrances of drought and storm and flood.

The canopy's abundant hemisphere
could shade a multitude;
manna hived in its corona
lures the winged hosts of the air…


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