Rain Tree

Samanea Saman, Samanea Saman.
A rain tree sings in the sunrise.
A verdant green umbrella
the soft shade of eternal love.
Pink flowers reach like infant hands.
A symphony of birds in her arms.
But,
when the big rain comes.
Samanea folds her leaves and cries.
The fairy wrens and whiskered tree swifts
take their songs and fly.
There are no lorikeets or corellas
or the blue-headed Murai Batu
who sings every bird’s song for you.
Opalescent butterflies and the kaleidoscope of
Atlas moths have gone away.
Macaques and gibbons sit wet and frowning
in the dripping gray.
Samanea stands only to survive.
A wet skeleton.
A memory folded within herself.
If you can see her standing there in the rain,
you will see what my heart looks like
when you’re gone.