#12 Ernest Wilson goes to China by Emma McKervey

Ernest Wilson goes to China

There had been despair when at last he’d reached the site of the tree

and discovered instead a new home constructed of well seasoned planks of timber

which his elderly scribbled map had not allowed  for.

Behind him lay Yunan, disease, bandits, shipwreck and the incomprehensible language

so abrupt he could not hear when speech turned to laughter, then back to speech.

He suspected laughter most of the time.

His specimen case bulged with many things but it was only as he finally swung

into the branches with arboreal ease in a secret copse at the brink of a cliff

(last autumn’s segments of fruit already scooped and bagged),

that he could see the bracts as white doves falling

until in the river they sailed; paper lanterns lit from within.

From the crook of the tree his own diamond body gleamed.