To Bend the Date Palm
Know that you can't bend
the date palm down on knees
and crouching meekness like
supliant pines bent low by
brazen hands and bronze
wires wound on
kiln-glazed
vase.
Know it will
with straight trunk,
task your patience, will
and power, ere it lays
down on the sun-scorched
sands its straight-ribbed,
lethal-bladed leaves.
Know for sure,
there's grace and beauty
in a bonsai-ed tree
to quench your thirsting
heart. Alas! for dates,
for always, you will scale
the heights to harvest
sweetness hungered for,
or be just there content
with dust-caked windfall
strewn on desert dunes.
Copyright © Miguel Mendoza | Year Posted 2005
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