Isabella

17

Climbing up an orange tree,

rotting leaves and poetry embrace
me:
as the flaming bird announces my coming
presence
amongst the garden trunks, high
within the walls of the unfallen fruit.
My worst fear-this is- but,
with the closing of the season
and reason to believe I'd find something great,

I climb on.

A broom, perhaps, would suit to dust away
my fear of the time in which this tree has
dwelt
with no thinking dwellers;
such as we are when all the time of day

is allotted to our inevitable smolder.

What better then, for my soul, to climb an orange tree?