The Purple Flames

At "this" time of year I would normally be very down. Although I've had my flatter days of late it's not been for the usual reasons for this time of year. In fact, this year I feel completely different. I'm not going to explain what I'm talking about. As with yesterday's post, those who know will know and those who don't know don't need to know. I'm writing in retrospect today, after seeing the purple flowers of Jacaranda trees last week and being reminded of what they mean to me, even now, although the feelings attached have changed.


The Purple Flames

Each year it comes around
The Jacaranda trees of green line up the streets
And don their purple gowns

It's meant so many things
To me through many years, so often tears
But now I just reflect on what has been

I stare up at the trees so tall
And as I watch I'm amazed at how the flowers seem as flames
Purple fires I now recall

That day long past but always fresh
When my precious Jacaranda tree began to bleed
As cuts appeared all down its flesh

I'm there again, the blood flows thick
I feel the cuts form in my head, dark stains of red
And to my knees I swiftly sink

Then it leans and branches break
As does my heart with a crushing pain and salty rain
Pours from my eyes to form a lake

Soaked and salty, smelling of my own sick
I can barely pull my head up from the water, almost dead
But though a wish I know the end will not come quick

For as I twist my neck I see that great tree
My greatest dreams and all it means rip at the seams
And then as if the blood were petrol flames appear

They engulf my mangled tree in violent waves
The pain explodes in me to every cell and light the fires of hell
Inside my very bones, but still won't let me to my grave

My eyes are fixed, the image burning like a brand
And in that moment I believe this pain won't end, I'll go insane
And for a while I do, as purple flames consume my land

A sudden flash - I'm here and now
And though I recall that past so real I now no longer feel
That pain or feel that blood drip down my brow

For time has healed all my scorched earth
As I never thought it would or could, I never understood
But now I do, for after fires there comes new birth

I kneel with someone new and plant a little tree
Now small but full of life it feeds upon our ground and we
Will love and care for it with all we are for we believe
That til our dying day it shall always shade us happily