Carolyn Miller: Street Trees of San Francisco

Crab apple trees blooming all over town!
Some brave, hopeful soul in the street-tree 
department has ordered them planted
on tired boulevards and wind-blasted avenues, 
in the sad alleys and on dusty side streets:
little staked stick trees lined up and blossoming,
 red mallow/rose madder/magenta to
candy pink, flamboyant pom-poms dancing 
alongside old ficuses—elephant-skinned
and struggling for balance—proud magnolias
and harum-scarum gum trees, gnarled pittosporums 
smelling of jasmine, and—just in time
for the warm days of spring, and despite everything 
that keeps going wrong—the ginkgos,
opening tiny green fans.

Copyright 2017 Carolyn Miller. From Route 66 And It’s Sorrows (Terrapin, 2017).

Carolyn Miller grew up in the Missouri Ozarks. Today she lives in San Francisco, where she writes, paints, and works as a free-lance copy editor.