Bonsai Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

Bonsai

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Changing the shape
of a young tree
is a pretty brutal affair
you get the steel beak
in hand to cut those
unruly aerial wands
bunkered buds asleep
now
so dead, and if you left it
til spring its a hurried
cull with a blade that's dull
then, burn the evidence
in this washing machine drum
but your tree has a stammer now
and is all fucked up
got the shape of
wooden lightning sprouting
from the ground up

then, some day soon
when the wind shakes
and snatches at the car door
and twirls the ghost of
a shopping trolley across
the tarmac floor, you
remember that sapling
the kids nearly broke making
a path through to the
gas station, moths to the neon
the sweet counter, that platoon
conscripted by mums
to get the milk,
the path shone in the rain
a Boeing contrail undone
like a ribbon of silk
the little tree healed now
look
between windscreen lashes
how graceful these
wind curved limbs
this ballet of
riot-bent branches
it just goes to show
it will come out alright
if you leave things alone
to take their chances

Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Topic(s) of this poem: culture
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Tom Allport 28 June 2017

a poem of leaving well alone and not interfering when there is no need too? ................well written

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Jean Bernard Parr

Jean Bernard Parr

Sallanches, France
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