Tamarisk

Foresight, Endurance and Survival of Artesian Plants

To break the scorching heat
Strange plants shrink into brambles,
Anchoring their roots twenty fathoms deep
Through the hostile rock.
Others, to quench a thirst born in deep sand,
Fashion their trunks into reservoirs;
Swelling like barrels ribbed with drinking tubes
To hoard the sap vital for their survival.
Some, seemingly scorched at ground level,
Sprawl their stubborn branches—
Tough as leather strips — in every direction
To push new shoots through the dust.
And there are those whose leaves stay withered for years,
Enduring centuries without a single drop of rain,
Only to burst into a sudden and brilliant bloom

At the very first hint of water.

Published in Petite Cosmogonie sentimentale
Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne, 2004.