Kapok
The “Kapok” Girls
Three sisters rush into the clearing from three, seven, eleven, arms and hair flying, chins up preparing for the collision that secures their futures together. The jolt is not painful as we might think but metamorphic. Together a larger version of themselves roots, individual skirts polished by wind still frozen in their final flourish. Faces hidden in conversation but limbs stretched toward birds in an ecstasy of wonder. This was generations ago, and they are still talking. We hear them when the wind is from the west.
Elizabeth Kerlikowske
Kapok: Mayan Legend Has It
the souls of
the dead climb the old
kapok – use
its branches
as highways reaching toward
Heaven – perch, waiting.
Margo Roby
Kapok Tarantella
Hers is an aging beauty,
the trunk expanded
to its final diameter, as the old kapok
settles into place -- much like
an elderly elephant – she has lived
out centuries.
Buttressed roots surround her, swirl
like a taffeta skirt. Her arms still
lift, spread in a final tarantella.
King's Canyon
the sky is the floor
I hear them tell me, “look up”
rise and be as gods
Susan Rogers