Night lingers beneath the silk trees’ curving boughs,
Velvet soft their star-spangled canopy,
Bejewelled as a sultry bridal gown,
And cool as the fountains of Samarkand.
When the golden sun lights up the eastern sky,
Dewdrops hanging from rose-silky petal spikes
Reflect the hues of hanging garden blooms
And glitter with the songbirds’ liquid notes
That pour in sorrow from a thousand captive throats,
Filled with all the grief of broken wings.
Growing far from home with roots in distant lands,
The silk trees’ feather leaf fans fed by foreign streams,
Across the years and burning desert sands,
The breeze sighs with their languid cloistered dreams.
Jane Dougherty Writes 