A cluster of bristles, here
smooth branches erupt
to twelve, thirty foot
some stalks call themselves trees
though all are self-same, similar,
differing only in linked breadth/height/stiffness
but no two leaves are the same; glowing
Red, one feels. Redness as a veil;
splotches of green are common, tatters and fractal edges
forming points, turning in and then out;
no leaf is whole, but each speaks to an ideal,
and one's face feels the glow of a hazy sun;
redness as a shrine to red.
Just outside red's reach, delicate like clouds behind the sun,
inches of wrinkled root turn vertical, seek their way up
adjusting course left and right
as though knotholes were eyes (and so they look)
and in its youth the bare wood tracked a star
to leave this record.
Of twelve feet, it has children who, seeking distance
saunter horizontally, taking after their grandparents
but lacking the tests of soil, are smooth.
These branched thin lines balance the trunk,
are balanced in turn by others thinner and cross-purpose
which seen through branches overlap
in a weave of chaotic regularity, supporting
pink leaves, to start narrow at the branch
sweep to a dramatic roundness,
pinch to a point.
Pink and green blend evenly, resist
any interpretation as yellow.
This precise ambiguity balances
the contradictory red, creating
on this foggy day, a pull
to two suns of a phoenix existence.