cedar
birch
acacia
it's all ground down into dust
I pine away
for spruce
yellow and spilling sap
on the hill
above my terrace
eucalyptus are
leading closed lives
as immigrants do
while all around them
garden plots nudge
girdled cork
the wind distorts
the lowing pines
as sycamore lining streets
are sheared like sheep
willows, willows
where are you?
beyond
the norfolk spines
and palms full of weevils
are camelia crowded dells,
vine-strangled, ghosts
I search along
a stream
for willows
finding few
but knew tamarisk
would be here
and poplar
wiping away nostalgia
I return to Porto
to be sweet gummed
and ginkoed
