Bamboo

E. W. Northnagel

Bamboo congregates
peoplelike
in frightened bunches,
stretching tall, greenish youth
seasoning brown; some bent
with age, and a few
broken boughs in death.

I prefer to think I
reach bamboo heights
without paranoid assembly,
wind-rattled cowering;
without hanging-out scared.

I am a bamboo lover
as long as I can be
a sword-swashing yucca
on a high embankment
jamming flowered spikes
at the sky.

Copyright © E. W. Northnagel