The Cypress-Tree Poem by Victoria Grace Blackburn

Out of the clod of earth
That holds me to this melancholy place,
As ancient servitors
Held flambeaux for their lords
In draughty corridors,
I leap into the sky.

I am a torch with an inherent blaze,
No winter bears me or my verdure down:
The whirling snow and ice
Fall on me to their peril, not to mine:
The swift and sudden wind
Deflects but can not quench
My everlasting fire,
My fire that mounts out of the cerecloth of the dead
And draws its essence from mortality,
Transmuting dissolution and despair
Into aspiring form–
A shape that is a symbol–
A pose prophetic!
I am the Cypress-Tree men plant on graves,
And on their graves–I flame!