S.E. Page Reaching for the Flying Plum If I sit still and ground myself like a tree I can almost imagine heartwood in flight— Unbound by bedrock or soil, roots quivering on bare sky, Tobiume, the flying plum of Japanese lore Soaring all the way from Kyoto to Fukuoka Hundreds of miles to rejoin its favorite human The exiled scholar Michizane—because no garden Can hold back what sun blesses free and fierce. Tobiume’s legend sprouted over a millennia ago, but I still hear the flutter and billow of each branch, White petals flowering like a thousand times A thousand stories of sacred stars, and I too enshrine Bright shades of leaf and bud in my heart for those Hours I fall without wings, yet dare on a dream, On breath and breeze—blood and sap draw Strength even under strange blue and wild airs.
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