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 © | Year Posted 2005

Poem

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August 14, 2014 at 7:07 PM
Miguel, I really love this poem. I am finishing up a dissertation about the history of the date industry in California. I'd like to include a portion of this poem in my dissertation. Can you contact me regarding your permission to include it? Thanks! Sarah. (datefestivalbook AT gmail.com)
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