You elongate your catkins,
male flowers dangled
from the tips of your naked limbs
in seduction of the wind before Spring
unfurls your pink or chartreuse canopy.
Your few females tuck up at the crook
awaiting the ecstasy of pollen
Monoecious yet self-incompatible
you must count on your distant-relations
standing near, and the hillsides
abreeze in ochre, or the powdered
buzz of native bees,
to deliver the yellow dust
that pollinates life into your acorns
to grow fine new trees.
