Eucalypts in Exile

They’ve had so many jobs:
boiling African porridge. Being printed on.
Paving Paris, flying in her revolutions.
Supporting a stork’s nest in Spain.

Their suits are neater abroad,
of denser drape, unnibbled:
they’ve left their parasites at home.

They flower out of bullets
and, without any taproot,
draw water from way deep.
When they blow over
they reveal the black sun of that trick.

Standing round among shed limbs
and loose slabbings of bark
is homeland stuff
but fire is ingrained.
They explode the mansions of Malibu
because to be eucalypts
they have to shower sometime in Hell.

Their humans, meeting them abroad,
often grab and sniff their hands.

Loveable singly or unmarshalled
they are merciless in a gang.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

I With You Am

Peter J. Leithart

Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus meets the remaining eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee. He…

Christian Ownership Maximalism

Timothy Reichert

Christendom is gone. So, too, is much of the Western civilization that was built atop it. Christians…

The First Apostle and the Speech of Creation

Hans Boersma

Yesterday, November 30, was the Feast of St. Andrew, Jesus’s first apostle. Why did Jesus call on…