To the Rosella in the Poinsettia Tree

  • Year: 1941
To the Rosella in the Poinsettia Tree
Crimson Rosella, O'Reilly's, Lamington Plateau (Photo by Colbert Cheung, used with permission)

by James Picot   

Beautiful bird, in as your wings as vivid
A tree, Rosella! Beautiful bird, I said:

'Your tent won't shelter you or love or me,
Red lad, these nine-o'-clocks, when Beauty looks
Pomp undue – indeed a ceremony
Too grand for the brown-eaten ribbed old livid
Wall behind of a tin factory!'

But the upward sun still burned them on
To tulip crimson from their poppy scarlet,
Those poinsettia petals, till at almost
Noon, he glowed in turn behind each moon,
Lamp, leaf, - the Wished-for-One-O, separate, crimson!-

For he seemed to burn each petal free,
Till but that Double Fire was to see –
And now there is but Light for Love to be!

                                                    James Picot, 1941

 

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