The Magnolia Tree

   Despite the frosts and damps of March
   Which spot the grass like scattered starch,
A magnolia tree, before a single leaf
Has spread, has flowered into a sunburst head
   Of colour, like the self-belief
Of one who, though encumbranced by the dead,
Has flung aside his cerecloths to proclaim
   His phoenix-rising in a flame.

   Firework of life! Brünhilde’s grief,

   Infolding fire of Eliot’s wreath,
Those Pentecostal flames on Peter’s brow,
Though teeming, are outshone by this display
   Which, like a fountain in the wind’s sough,
Cascaded round the bole gone wetly-grey
And damped its lichen to a seasick green
   That pre-spring flowers should have such sheen.

   Those flutes of flesh, cerise and bright,

   Flamed at the base, at top pure white,
Dimpling at pressure like a woman’s cheeks,
As luscious to the sight as moist fresh figs,
   Within held sweets which the bee seeks,
Clambering on stamens with frenzied jigs,
Those pistils like tiaras, green-gold eggs,
   The bee caresses with its legs.

   Fullness done, the flowers flop

   To star shape, then the petals drop;
Its leaves in khaki-green enclothe the tree,
A beau demobbed, now staid in middle life.
   Late autumn’s winds in smash and flee
Strip the tree whilst shrilling upon the fife,
Then winter sears its branches to an almond stain
   Like bones upon Ezekiel’s plain.

   This tree will bud again but not

   Men’s bones unless a Penteco’t
Rent Physics in a flame-fierce Second Coming
Which – fire of petals emblazoning the tree –
   Re-fleshing bones with a mighty drumming,
Summons the four winds of eternity
To fuel their senses that in bliss there be
   The colours of this magnolia tree!

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© April 2015