Best Cypress Poems

Oldest tree,
where Black River old-growth weathers
wetland over millennia.  
Your ancient sinker roots
in dank swamp muck. 

Primordial conifer,
Are you the sacred tree of Artemis,
or part of Aristotle’s potential actualizing? 
What epic epoch do you realize?
What timeworn bones in your woodland knobby knees?

Your primeval bark peels...

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I awakened to giant egrets 
dancing while brilliant hawks 
bluster over head while 
thousands of white herons 
nest by night flying out 

every morning arriving 
within the Caribbean 
by noon only to return 
just in time for  dinner 
cardinals perch low singing 

lovely hymns...

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sentinels
anchored on the coast-
cypress grove

May 1, 2018...

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The tall Cypress trees
that my daddy had planted
years before i was begotten
to me were the tallest in the land

towering in majesty and magnificent
and a glint of blue where the back was..
was peeling off - so tall they were lovely trees
rising majestically to the very heavens...

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Lone Cypress

The lone cypress of
Monterey mocks the wind
The sea is amused....

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The Cypress stands still against 
the creaking and crumbling foliage 
the Cypress is cautious in the 
continual wind. It's two 
main branches keep the thousands 
of others aloft and in dreamy 
comfort, the wind singing 
a woodland lullaby of a few 
dozen notes. One of...

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~ A Monorhymed Fantasy ~

A virgin maid of twenty-nine
  angelic face, most benign
Sought the life of the front lines
  her upbringing undermined...

Two devilish, slack-jawed canines
  leaped at the cowering feline
Antagonistic, their bloodlines
  simmering in rancid brine...

Camouflaged prone, not supine
  a-slither...

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She breathes
     Each breath flowing deeper
     To her roots and roofs
She breathes the tropical air
     Each breath a proliferation of another being
     To her thin muscles, in vim and...

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I once towered proudly over my siblings,
my moss laden arms strained
to shadow those who slumber in my shade.
My body thick from the years,
stretching to the heavens,
soaking in its nourishment.
From within dense blanket
I have harbored miracles of life.

I have weathered the seasons,
but now I am poised...

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Golden thread cypress, 
Your personality, bright; 
Bush of the suns’ rays.  
Family resemblance, seen 
In shades of yellow and green.
...

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Cypress ‘knee's’ lap in the light
as dusk wades in.

Evening parachutes down,
it plants shallow pother
around ankle-deep trunks.

Anhinga necks stir shadows
under a low moon.
This is the gurgling gills
of a melting evening.
 
Florida ends at every lakeshore
where night-fevers begin.
A heated gloom that thickens
where bugs quicken.

We are locked into...

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Dusk wades in.
Anhinga necks stir shadows.
A humid nightfall laps Cypress knee’s.
where unseen eddy’s bubble and swirl.

Florida evaporates at its lakeshores
where nocturnal-fevers simmer.

We are locked into the chaffing songs
of crickets, the drilling buzz of mosquitoes,
as cypress roots soak in a swampy drench.

Egrets will rise before the...

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by Kano Eitoku (1543-90) color on gold-leafed paper

See, roots and branches tangled, massive as a warrior’s thigh.
This great tree flings its arms, imploring the heavens to be free.
Across miles of cloud, a mountain peak rises, flies away....

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The Met* has an exhibit,
Cypress paintings by Van Gogh.
We joined the crowds and went to see
This most amazing show.

Like all the other patrons,
We snapped photos on our phones,
Except for one lone painting,
Which a rich collector owns.

A guard stood right beside it;
He was there to oversee.
“No...

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When soft zephyrs are stirring arbor leaves
Words may be overheard whispered from trees.
Leaned against a trunk, my ears on alert,
This ranger heard soft words from a filbert.

A long-limbed water oak, leaning half bent,
Wryly some cross-cultural humor lent:
“An ancient Sawtooth oak nearby is king
His wide girth...

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