Red Eye by Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa

The Siberian apple tree holds its fruits
even when the frost is three meters deep;
is the red eye of the question mark staring
at me, asking me, what are you thinking now?
I can’t say; nothing. So I pause and rewind.
But thinking begins where the wind begins
and ends where it ends. So my response is
the things I know of the ash tree. It’s the last
to blossom and the first to shed leaves.
Its brittle branches are no abode for the
thrush, the goldcrest, the warbler, the dunnock,
the swallow, and the skylark, no matter
how sweet and sonorous are their songs.

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