A. ROBERT LEE Tokyo Sakura Tree Yes, it’s a Japan-icon, the nation’s postcard. Cherry blossoms. Branch-born, bud to flower. Wind-gyres of floating white-pink petal. Imprints upon woodblock, flag, coin, kimono. Even upon street manhole covers. Japan’s colour code. But, at…
MARGARET MCCARTHY THE SELFISHNESS OF THE TREES I It is the cruelest spectacle, they put on such clouds of white that allow you to believe in some endless generosity; you remember how you looked this time last year and the…
STEPHEN WILSON All year long I’ve been waiting on the promise of a light green cocoon whose size increased in almost imperceptible increments its tepals unable to free themselves yet always on the point of budburst as if something inside…
OWEN LOWERY Had it always been prone and immense there between barbed wire strands and the cornfield, its roots feathering the wind? Not a leaf on it while it lived and was reborn with each visit. Husk and bark and…
KRYSTYNA LENKOWSKA Fragility You say that the earth we touch is only a landslide. We walk along the ridge of the tongue where homes grew with a hearth in the heart. We don’t know what happened to them later. Maybe…
CEAITÍ NÍ BHEILDIÚIN [CATHI WELDON] Na cúiseanna go nDreapaim Crainn Dreapaim crann is mo bhuataisí orm M’iallacha ceangailte, bivouac im phaca agam. Dreapaim an crann is luascaim ann sa ghaoth. Dreapaim crann d’fhonn úll a stoitheadh D’fhonn radharcanna a fheiscint…
VICTOR HUGO You forest trees, how well you know my mind! The envious crowd is raucous and unkind; You know my soul! You’ve seen me as I’ve gone Gazing and musing in your depths alone: You know the outcrop that…
