I have a soft spot for the mimosa tree. One was growing in my grandfather’s yard when I was a child. My brother and I would climb its branches and use the seed pods in mud pie and “soup”. On a recent walk I took pictures of the mimosa blossom. It’s beautiful in its feathery flounce. When I took a moment to Google the tree this morning, I found out a few things:
- The tree comes from Asia, known as the Persian silk tree or the pink silk tree.
- The wood of the mimosa is brittle and prone to break. Thus the tree has a short life span.
- The tree is an invasive species from China.
- The tree attracts webworm.
- The mimosa pod (which my brother and I used in pretend play) is poisonous.
This mimosa tree was growing wild in Mississippi. I’ve also seen a few in our city park and near the bayou in a wooded area. Write a poem based on this image and put it into the comments. Please reply to 3 other writers with encouragement. Thanks for being here.
Fran Haley is leading the Open Write at Ethical ELA today. I used her prompt to create my poem.
Mimosa
evanescent blossoms
Margaret Simon, draft
perky pink feathering
flames of flower power
invasive Asian tree
reaching for the sunlight
my childhood memory
Reflections on the Teche 
Oh, Mimosa,
Your frothy blossoms lure me,
Your fern-like fronds shade me,
You offer your seed pods as a gift
That I shall not take. Beware!
draft, 2022, Jane Heitman Healy
All that nature offer isn’t a gift for sure -beware those proffered pods! – but the sight of “frothy blossoms” you mention is absolutely a gist to be safely savored. Lovely poem!
Love the word “frothy”! And ending with the warning! Thanks for writing today.
Love this ode to the tree that ends with a bang.
Margaret, your alliteration really punches–all the way back to childhood.
I love this poem and how you wove it into syllabic verse. Margaret. The interneal rhymes and alliteration add to the magic. As mentioned over on EE, I’ve been enchanted by mimosa trees since childhood as well.
In backlit childhood memory
grows an enchanting peach-fuzz tree
waving its handlike fronds at me
fairies beckoining merrily
Wonderful rhymes. Love “peach-fuzz.” I may have to write another poem, a found poem of all the great words discovered here.
Don’t know what was happening with my typing here – argh to the typos! Thanks for overlooking…
“backlit childhood memory” with fairies beckoning is a lovely image
This is glorious, Fran; so fanciful–“backlit childhood memory,” “peach-fuzz,” “waving its handlike fronds,” “fairies beckoning”–very inviting
Your poem is full of admiration for the tree and celebrates its place in your childhood memories, Margaret.
feathery fingers
beckon,
lure my admiration—
beautiful but
deceiving
I feel the same, Rose. My neighbor had one of these trees and I loved it until I learned all its downfalls. Alas. I love feathery fingers…
“beautiful but/deceiving” like so much in life! Thank you, Rose.
Those deceptively beautiful fingers do beckon – and are so alluring.
[…] with thanks to Margaret Simon for her photo, inspiring “This Photo Wants to Be a Poem” at Reflections on the Teche. […]