Honeysuckle
48” x 36”
Acrylic/Canvas

Here by the wall
the old honeysuckle vine
aged and embattled
still blossoms like a child.
This old man, dried twisting bark, 
twiggy and crisp, supported by a trellised cane,
leans tired while grasping the stucco wall.

These days, each year,
I comb and prune his bush
worrisome of my poking, yet
fragile though he is, I carefully cut 
nearest to the quick,
else he be forced by time to bend,
as his new crop emerges. 

And it does, 
with less an aroma ladened aura.
his sparse cover concentrated high,
green with white and red bangles,
attached in emblazoned coronets,
as though they were sewn 
onto his aged head. 

But still each day, each evening,
despite the aches and pains 
which I lovingly relate to,
he provides our hummingbird’s succor 
in their endless desire for nectar
and a place to rest
along hairless boney arms.