A Set of Three Renga Poems by Zachary McGar

 

Bald Cypress Renga 

 

Bald cypress leaves, red

Embroidered coverlet

Over the cold earth

 

Pull the covers down, old man

We can all see your pale knees!

 

Bald old men

Embroidering their stories

To make children smile

 

“Sit upon a cypress knee

Let me tell you what I see”

 

Easter egg hunt

Child reaches for an egg

But it’s a cypress knee!

 

The child’s disappointment

Sorry, there’s no prize inside!

 

Weave the fallen leaves

To cradle a cypress seed

And grow another tree

 

Trunk becomes a tower

And a mountain range of knees

 

I have seen these things

Gazing at the cypress tree

Old fool lost in thought

 

Of the cypress I have said

More than you ever asked for!  

 

 

Beautyberry Renga 

 

Beautyberry bush

Bracelets on slender wrists

Amid bright green leaves

 

Swaying to an unheard tune

May I celebrate with you?

 

Such colorful costumes

Long stalks dangle purple fruit

Oh parade riders

 

Throw me somethin', mista!

Wind lifts the stalk for the toss

 

Mista, I missed it

Purple beads caught in the tree

Looped around a branch

 

Tantalizing purple bunch

I can't reach with a ladder

 

Just out of reach!

King of Mardi Gras I beg you

Make the berries fall!

 

His scepter taps the branch

And blooms with beautyberries

 

Fluttering costumes

Dionysian blooms

Up every lamp post

 

Clusters so thick and heavy

Wrought iron balconies groan  

 

 

Crepe Myrtle Renga 

 

Small crepe myrtle grove

Frame of a house to be built

Pale exposed lumber

 

The bark lice are hard at work

Wrapping the house in webbing

 

So many workers

Commute up and down the trunk

It’s a traffic jam!

 

Bark lice, aphids, and spiders

Travel the pale smooth highway

 

When I hear the wind

Blow through crepe myrtle limbs

I dream of churches

 

Whoosh of swinging censer

The creak of old wooden pews

 

My friend doesn’t get it

He thinks the trees are ugly

And dares to mock them:

 

“Oh hairless cat of a tree

Lifting up your scrawny legs!”

 

I’ll let him be wrong

Because he still walks with me

When I pick this grove

 

Bypassing cypress and oak

In the botanical garden

 

Zachary McGar is a librarian in Baton Rouge and a member of the Poetry Society of Louisiana. His poems have appeared in Eternal Haunted Summer and The Classical Outlook.