A Poem: Blooming II

The blooms of my Michaellia Yunanensis
are falling,
picked up by the winds,
thrown as confetti.
They make a picture on the ground
as much as on the stem.
Nevertheless
they do not last for long,
either stem adhered or windborne.
Curling brown at the edge
upon the deck,
or crushed upon the driveway,
embossed with the patterns of tyres.

My Michaellia Yunanensis is a drawcard
for the bees, the butterflies,
and my eyes, as I sit here
in the intermittent spring sunshine.
That their petals are both
intrinsically fragile and tough,
is a life lesson, I think.
How we are brief lived
in the scheme of things—
with what mattering most being,
not longevity,
so much as the measure
of our blooming,
the grace we carry by
raising an open face
to the sun and wind,
whatever may come.

Allowing, like Rilke says,
everything to happen to us,
both beauty and terror.
It’s not so terrible perhaps
for the petal who lifted and landed.
Not so terrible,
and very beautiful,
to be one of many
blooming in the spotlight,
fading out,

feeling upon us
a weighty impression,
not knowing its pattern.
Disintegrating and
looking up,
seeing in the light,
and the haze of white,
a wider purpose.
How we are not just petal,
or leaf, or bloom even,

but tree,
with all its appointed seasons.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
August 2022

Four years earlier I sat at the same window and wrote the poem below, also inspired by this beautiful tree. I am sad to say it is now 2024 and a couple of years ago, after a very wet winter, our beautiful tree bowed out.

MORNING SIGN

I thought I couldn’t pray.
The words had escaped my tongue.
But ‘cannot’ is not a word
that stands up to the coming of day.
The branches of the Michaellia Yunanensis
have sprung forth into bloom.
Its white riotous mantle
a foretaste of spring.
Ever we see signs of blessings to come
if we look.
Sometimes as sudden and striking
as a tree burst into life.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
August 2018