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.

S.E. Page

Super Bloom

Sometimes I shrivel and fall to the eighth lowest Place in the world, down to Death Valley

In the summer of 1913 when the ground Simmered and crackled at 134 degrees— The hottest day ever recorded by man. I feel the sear inside me now, every hue and hope

Puffing into cinder dreams deep within dead sands Until I’m certain I’ll never know lush colors again Not understand tinge and glow even if I could slake My own soul-parched eyes with life one more time.

But the sky remembers even if I forget myself, Falling in a perfect storm in the valley just over A century later, a mere one and a half measly inches Of water bursting barren earth into a rare super bloom—

Yellow armfuls of sun-hearted Desert Gold, tall lace sprigs Of white Gravel Ghost, round blossom heads of Purple Sand Verbena, nosegays of bell-shaped Notch Phacelia, And scarlet beauty marks of pink-blushing Desert Fivespot.

I cast the promise of these petals against my mental aridity, Tearing seeds with earnest moisture—patient orbs I plant

For the century, or the second, of my own super bloom.

S.E. Page

Synestia Moon

Once upon a synestia,

Two planets collided in the young dark Bright of space and vaporized each other.

The wild ruins of Earth and Theia whirled anew Into a spinning ring rich with molten matter.

Droplets tamed by gravity rained inwards, Condensing the hot new heart of the world.

But a globe escaped the sear of this birthing storm, Cooling into an orb with a face not far from pearl.

For the briefest snatch of time, the moon’s surface Gleamed smooth and unbroken, suspended like a dream

No human eyes would ever see before meteor scarred, Pocked, and cratered lunar symmetry out of perfection.

But true form and flaw are never beyond imagining— What the universe forgets, minds may set aglow again.

S.E. Page