Flora Emmanuel

The Lumbermen warn of Amittai shade,

A fade comfort. Alas, winter looming,

I went down to Tarshish, down to Joppa,

Down to Plato’s Cave. But at the mouth of

The beast, of my own hibernal tomb, I

Was met with a Winter Sage. Then blushed with

Fall, a cardinal red, my fig leaves, the fade

Comforts, were plucked by an eastward wind. “I

Can spare my leaf; I am evergreen” — clothed

In righteousness, yet naked the same, on

Its bark was etched my shame. As if hung on

A branch, my mock red heart began to droop.

In reply was Heaven’s reach, extending

But a Calvary Trellis out to me.