eastern cottonwood

The eastern cottonwood is a member of the genus Populus which also includes the aspen and poplar species.  They are distinguished by their ovate leaves which dangle from long petioles and allow them to shimmer, even in the softest breezes.

"Cottonwood Blue"

If I could forget the plains behind this stand,

forget the train car and how I first saw

brown clouds tabled against a ceiling of heat, 

I could imagine this river valley

gave relief to land, that these tallest trees

diced sky into music above the oxbow

lake where bodies sink surely as pilings

set each spring for temporary docks,

where foundations lower houses like bait

for the leviathan rising of frost.

But it is summer.  Useless cottonwoods

do not crack in cold.  They've thrown a storm

of pith and down across lawn and screens

-Art Homer