Cotinus coggygria
I was hiking half a world from home
when I saw a smoke tree on the trail ahead
smolder into a lather of light, plush
as powder in the heat-choked air—
and clustered along spinules, thin
as capillaries, a tiny arson flared,
then rose into a stratosphere
where the ash of all I was and had
was rushing toward some distant ground
I’d planted once with such as this
in memory of someone dead, and from
that half a world away, a cloud returned
faltering with rain: I was no longer sad.
from The Burning of TroyFind it in the library
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