Poetry of Issue #7        Page 25

Gingkos

A dazzling sight:
glowing gingko leaves
spread like saffron snow
under trees in Bronxville.

Bending over, I see
each leaf is remarkable.
Its scalloped edge and veins, like rays
of the rising sun, say “Asia,” look ancient.

I reach for my phone.
All-knowing Wikipedia says the gingko
is native to China, has been found in fossils
dating back 270 million years—is a fossil.
Europeans first saw it in a Japanese temple garden.
Eastern religions revere the tree as a symbol
of longevity and peace.

When the atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima, six gingkos
growing 1-2 kilometers from the site
were among the few living things
to survive. They’re still there.

The gingko’s other name is
maidenhair tree.

Then I remember.
A woman I know called the gingko
“the vomit tree.” I get what she meant.
One fall, in a seedy section of Greenwich Village,
I stepped in some gingko crud.
For the longest time after that,
my sneakers smelled like a sick wino
on Sunday morning.

Back to the phone.
The sage Wikepedia confirms
neither I nor the woman are crazy. It says,
the female gingko produces fruit in late autumn
that stinks when left on the ground:
“The rotting fruit emits an odor that smells
like vomit.”

That’s one way to get men to notice you.

If I owned a house, I’d plant this tree
on either side of the front door. I predict
the gingko will survive global warming.
We won’t.

  Jacqueline Coleman-Fried