Palm - Vesna McMaster

Palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.

Hand

Give me your hands.

When April, with its showers sweet, the drought of March has pierced to the root, then people get itchy feet and want to go on pilgrimages. Trot trot trot to Canterbury.

Palms, hands, pilgrims, applause, handshakes, agreements, matrimony, business deals – further and further from the tree. Palm trees entirely obliterated by their metaphor, overshadowed by symbolism. 2,600 species of palms, waving in balmy climes, and all I can think of reaches back to metonymies of possession, binding, obsequy and subservience.

Can I sit behind a date palm and be spat at by a passing camel? Rolling in the starry sand of a northern beach and finding coconuts ready for evening rum and lime is less accessible than the printed word, tucked away somewhere. Lived moments disconnected from concepts in communication.  A futile search for inspiration.

Never mind. Chores to do. The garden’s a mess. I get up and start removing the dead palm fronds clogging the pool.