A Palm Tree On Chestnut Street

There is a tree.

There is a palm tree on Chestnut Street.

Like children playing

Waving hand, waving hands

Like eggbeaters in the moment.

There are palm trees that date memory

That whip up fat thoughts

On life-line like thin switches

That cut the air and misbehavin.’

Not the West Indies, but West Oakland.

Where trees pine alone,

Within Cypress Gardens projects?

And fruit rewards climber’s art.

There is a palm tree on Chestnut Street.

It stands post

Outside the gallery of Upper rooms

Where books anchored by the Bible

Wait in formation of

“Have” and “Have-not” read;

A Red Sea division.

Not the West Sahara, but West Oakland.

Where carpets shag oak wood floors

And an occasional silverfish is seen

Off Venetian Blind.

There is a tree on Chestnut Street.

Where trees bark

...After the rain

Hymns of lemon larks,

While chestnut julep simmers

And ebony saplings stir about.

There are bigger palms I suppose. . .

But there is no bigger tree

In West Oakland.

–Gene Howell