Before the monsoon

There are days like this. When I feel dry, bare, buffeted.
All around her, the others still wear green; this tree is out of sync
with the seasons. She follows some other rhythm, some African beat
that only she hears. Her pods have been emptied of their cellophane seeds,
ransacked by wild parakeets and squirrels. When they fall, these pods
look like canoes. But though the skies are grey and the wind promises rain,
it lies, and so the canoes rot slowly in the graveyard at her feet.

P.S. This is an African flame tree that grows at the edge of the graveyard behind our terrace.