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Posters for the
missing kapok tree appear on streetlights
offering a reward for its safe return. I hate to spoil it,
but the end of every biography is death. The end of a city
in the rainforest is a legend and a lost expedition. The end
of mythology is forgetfulness, placing gifts in the hole
where the worshipped tree should be. But my memory
lengthens with each ending. I know where to find the lost
mines of Muribeca and how to cross the Pacific on a raft
made of balsa. I know the tree wasn’t stolen. She woke from
her stillness some equatorial summer evening by a dream
of being chased by an amorous faun, which was a memory,
which reminded her that in another form she had legs
and didn’t need the anxious worship of people who thought
her body was a message. She is happier than the poem tattooed
on her back says she is, but sadder than the finches nesting
in her hair believe her to be. I am more or less content to be
near her in October storms, though I can’t stop thinking that
with the right love or humility or present of silk barrettes
and licorice she might become a myth again in my arms, ardent
wordless, needing someone to bear her away from the flood.
 
Copyright © 2014 by Traci Brimhall. Used
with permission of the author.
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