The Flame-tree Blooms

It was you planted it;

and it grew high and put on crops of leaves,

extravagant fans; sheltered in it the spider weaves

and birds move through it.

For all it grew so well

it never bloomed, though we watched patiently,

having shosen its place where we could see

it from our window-sill.

Now, in its eighteenth spring,

suddenly, wholly, ceremoniously

it puts off every leaf and stands up nakedly,

calling and gathering,

every capacity in it, every power,

drawing up from the very roots of being

this pulse of total red that shocks my seeing

into an agony of flower.

It was you planted it;

and I lean on the sill to see it stand

in its dry shuffle of leaves, just as we planned,

these past years feeding it.