Amanda Williamsen: “Catalpa”
CATALPA
A doe swims beneath it. Ears back, black nose
huffing, hooves churning unseen. Her witness,
only the catalpa. Ice-scarred and endangered
by its weight, it grows at the edge
of erosion, leaning from sycamores’ shade
on the bank, roots exposed. Spread
crown. Splayed branches. All of it open,
its large, heart-shaped leaves following the sun
all day, turning almost imperceptibly.
It’s June, and the tree has burst into improbable
blossom. Consider its situation.
Think again.
And watch it throw its white froth, white fire
over the water.
There is no flower like this. Wild bells
tremble, high in the breeze, their pale scent impossible
to cultivate, or even, held singly, to discern.
That’s why it does this. Just once, each year: burn
everything. Pull and drink, sun and river, and flare
hard with its one thrust of beauty. Here,
it says, and it hopes it’s enough. Sweet bee,
find me.
The insides of the blossoms are flecked with blood.
On the island, the doe staggers up through the mud.
Amanda Williamsen‘s work has appeared in New Ohio Review, Midwestern Gothic, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, red wheelbarrow, Baltimore Review, and Pathways: a Journal of the Ohio Humanities Council. She is a past Poet Laureate of Cupertino, CA.