it stood just past the chookyard where
the ridge began to fall away; its gnarled
and knobbly bark made climbing easy,
and its limbs formed a convenient eyrie
where I would sit to rack and riddle through
my boyhood’s everyday conundrums;
now I rack and riddle Goldengrove's
unleaving, and can see how I’ve been
moulded to the treeness of my tree;
at funerals, I baulk at the oh-so- lovely
flowers’ doomed attempt to sugarcoat
the crucible of grief, and yearn instead
for what the eyrie taught me:
the stark and fireborn Banksia’s
rugged beauty of defiant hope
© the Revd Jim McPherson
Image www.taxateca.com
Banksias, from the family, Proteaceae, are Australian trees dating from the Gondwana period. Banksia seeds need fire to trigger their germination (pyriscence), hence the term, ‘fireborn’.