eucalyptus viminalis

I reached up, and ever up,

my palm skimming grey, morning green,

and a wraith of sandstorm-brown.

I climbed and saddled myself astride

the notch of two dividing, naked limbs,

my sap to the tree’s sap, my limbs locked around you,

my lips to your smooth, cool bark;

the scent, the sense of your leaves,

the bitterness of girls’ hair in the rain,

the taste of it on my tongue.

I knew how there was no right mind in love,

only being grafted against my will to the eucalyptus,

now less than half woman,

yet not quite all tree.

About This Poem

Review Request Direction: [This option has been removed]

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: by Dundee, Scotland, GBR

Favorite Poets: I try not to be influenced; I like the work of Chez Harvey and Lane A Smith, I admire Richard Siken but don't often like his work. I admire Lisa Jarnot. I can take Carol Ann Duffy and Liz Lochhead in small doses. I am in awe of Shakespeare, Yeats, and Dylan Thomas. I think Robert Browning and Philip Larkin should have been strangled at birth.

Comments

magics02

14 years 3 months ago

Awesome

I have to come back for second read but I caught the essence in this write and the image of it all says much. Good job Marie

Blessings
Mona

Marie Marshall

14 years 3 months ago

Thanks :)

Thanks, Mona.

CCfire

14 years 3 months ago

Of course I had to

come read when I saw the title :) and I love the joining of the tree genus with the human one and the aroma's of the eucalypti are well known, so much so they put it into a liniment they call Goanna Oil lol which literally doesn't mean there is a goanna in it at all :P Marie this is just you with that soft girlish edge I love reading in your work.