Jacaranda Season

Jacaranda season. Purple clusters
in every other garden, and fallen blooms
beneath the trees, creating an effect
   as if the streets and lawns reflect
the boughs that lean above them like booms;
     purple feather dusters

on the branches, as if some housekeeper
stacked them there, out of reach; roadways that are transformed
into ponds. Yet this season at the end
   of the year, as the colours blend
and echo one another, thunderstorms
     in a purple deeper

than the wisteria draped in the lanes
looming over the carparks and the bottle shops,
is the time when my mother celebrates
   her birthday. The purple relates
to the colour of wine on the rooftops,
     shining in windowpanes

and garden borders, the rich royal hue
of the Roman emperors. Yet as for my mother,
who is turning ninety, there is to be
   a full-scale, catered lunch party
held in a city club. Any other
     acquaintances who

she can remember are invited, from bridge
partners and croquet players to the remotest
relative. Jacaranda blooms hang down
   like bells, all over the town,
then fall to the ground to resemble pressed
     flowers, pinned on a page,

although some of them are curled up like snails.
My mother’s party will be a kind of rehearsal,
held in advance, while she is still alive,
   for an event that none survive;
it is going to resemble her funeral.
     Tablecloths like sails