The trees in this photo are nothing, really, like the ones in my mind, where it's night and the boughs of lavender are closer to gray, catching the light of odd streetlamps and the occasional passing car. Those night blooms are the ones that finally caught my imagination, and wound up in this poem—which is only so much, really, about jacarandas at all. I pull it out today because it's in a calendar that features poems about L.A., and I'll be reading it at Skylight tomorrow. More information about that project is here.
Today, I want what I have
Purple fills the gutters—jacarandas,
blossoms descending against the gray.
Chalked beneath the trees, the outlines of
cars and our own sleeping shapes, scattered
in the night. We lie waiting for beauty
to alight, sticky, blinking
into skin, the house tinted, sky swaying
with drifts and flight. How often the blossoms
have disappeared as we wandered, lost
beyond these streets, longing for some other
miracle—the migration of monarchs
or the scent of a lost year’s perfume. Is
it your touch or this petal breeze that
pulls me back? This time, I hold out my hand.
(photo by ccharmon via flickr)
