Fuchsia (September)

‘Fuchsia Excorticata’ is a native New Zealand tree. Charles Brasch’s poem of that name reveals his Italophile inclinations, where “the terracotta bark, / Loose-papered, glows like sunburnt skin”. He calls what Maori names kotukutuku “Warm Etruscan”. Poets go to contrary lengths, as when Brasch claims “Long ago the fuchsias forgot birds, seasons, weather,” when we know plant memory thrives on these for survival. These fuchsias are “begotten under midnight and no moon” and are “with black dew nightly replenished”, which means something if you read Exodus. Like Brasch (my September reading) himself they “turned from all fellowship outside the tribe.”