Mobile Art Saturday Poetry – The Flame Tree by Evelyn Flores
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled The Flame Tree by Evelyn Flores. She is an Indigenous CHamoru poet and the co-editor of Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2019).
“As it had been for the rest of the world, it had been a year of death and dying for us in the wake of the virus. On an island like Guåhan where families are connected in many different ways, we walked about in a state of shock that this could be happening. Then it was that my neighbor leaning across the fence talked about poisoning the flame tree. Although it made sense, something inside resisted. But it was done. Dying and living came together as I watched that courageous tree refuse to die. We would go on. The beautiful would insist. That’s when the poem came.” She wrote about this poem.
I have matched mobile art by @vickieiphoto52 entitled ‘Upside Down Tree’ with this poem. To view her Instagram feed, please go here.
If you would like to be featured in our Saturday Poetry section, please ensure you include the hashtag #theappwhisperer to any images posted to Instagram. This will mean we will be able to consider it.
To view the others we have published in this section, go here.
via Poets.org
The Flame Tree by Evelyn Flores
My neighbor has decided to poison the flame tree.
He is right, of course.
The tree is over 20 years old, huge, spreading,
and the termites have worn jagged roads clear to its top.
It’s clearly a danger
tilting toward our house—
some fickle wind
my neighbor says could blow it over.
Every fañomnåkan, it sends out its bursts of orange blossoms;
it blooms and blooms and blooms relentlessly,
the flares it sends shooting out into space
more stunning than fireworks
through the window
where my mother
riveted to a bed, doomed by her body to a colorless spot,
gazes out, her head on a pillow—
might have seemed like forever to her who used to climb green mountain sides—
and watches that tree full of sparrows
chittering
chattering
flitting here and there
and the outlandish blazing petals
steadfastly singing against the blue sky.
My neighbor, true to his word,
injected a poisonous brew bought at Home Depot into the trunk of the tree,
the toxic river traveling up up up following the termite trails to the heart
of the fire.
He is right, of course.
The tree came back the following year,
its clusters unflinchingly parading their bursts of rebellious orange.
But the poison had done its work—
see, where there was a canopy of flames
there are now just a handful here and there,
one spray in particular desperately
reaching out
like a fist full of beauty
to the window
where she
used to watch for its return.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
