The Yellow Elder: An Ode to Bahamian Gold
Of ocean kisses coral every day,
There stands a bloom, a bush, a sunlit tree,
The heart of all the bright Bahamian sea.
The Yellow Elder, or the Ginger-Thomas,
Whose glorious gold no shadow can embarrass.
Tecoma stans, the name the botanist knows,
But to the islands, it’s the light that glows.
It wears the crown, the emblem finely spun,
The chosen symbol of a nation's sun.
No fragile bloom that seeks the humid shade,
But one in tropic glory fiercely made.
From Bimini's shore to Inagua's south,
A golden trumpet at the summer's mouth,
A sturdy sentinel of vivid green,
The brightest standard ever to be seen.
The petals cup a sunshine soft and deep,
Where nature's purest, richest pigments sleep.
A bell-shaped treasure, trumpet-like and proud,
It clusters thickly, lifting past the cloud
Of darker foliage, saw-toothed, serrated bright,
A canvas painted in the day's full light.
A hundred suns upon a single spray,
To chase the slightest gloom of doubt away.







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