Poetry Magazine
Song of the Oyamel
On the other side of this door
You are an oyamel native to the mountains of Mexico
Rising in a cloud forest of sister evergreens
Shedding pollen cones, shedding winged seeds
Our lost wings
singly and in pairs.
This is why the monarchs vanish
Raising sienna-hued colonies longer than my arms
Hibernating in Mexico where it’s hotter in January
than my front yard, where the red bougainvillea raves
And magnolias with a mauve rush on paper
And open as though thinking about last year’s novels
Read over the shoulders of garden-strollers
Obey the apostle’s exhortation
And do everything in love.
Source: Poetry (April 2012).
Biography
Karen An-hwei Lee is the author of Phyla of Joy (Tupelo Press, 2012), Ardor (Tupelo Press, 2008) and In Medias Res (Sarabande Books, 2004). She lives and teaches in southern California, where she is a novice harpist.
Poems by Karen An-hwei Lee
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Activities, Gardening, Nature, Trees & Flowers
POET’S REGION U.S., Western
Poetic Terms Free Verse
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