Poetry Blog No 183 Norfolk Island Pines at Dusk

 

NORFOLK ISLAND PINES AT DUSK

In a civilisation dominated by the prosaic, by data and purely intellectual models of the real, there is a threat of creative stagnation and loss of human meaning. I believe that poetry is an art that can, perhaps more than most, give back something of the mystery and immediacy of actual experience.

The Norfolk Island Pines mentioned in this piece are endemic to Norfolk Island.

Araucaria heterophylla (synonym A. excelsa) is a vascular plant in the ancient and now disjointly distributed conifer family Araucariaceae. As its vernacular name Norfolk Island pine implies, the tree is endemic to Norfolk Island, a small island in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, about 1440 km east of Sydney, Australia. The genus Araucaria occurs across the South Pacific, especially concentrated in New Caledonia (about 700 km due north of Norfolk Island) where 13 closely related and similar-appearing species are found. It is sometimes called a star pine, triangle tree or living Christmas tree, due to its symmetrical shape as a sapling, although it is not a true pine. From Wikipedia

NORFOLK ISLAND PINES AT DUSK

Wide autumn waves lap last gold light

that fades from west line’s burning sight.

Four Norfolk pines, dusk-dark,

upon a seaside hill

stand tall.

Sky sentinels, they raise

their needled branches high

towards violet sky vastness,

ethereal and far.

And in light-melting western haze,

behind pines’ silhouetted sharpness,

now Venus is

first-blazing star.