Its graceful shape appears ahead of me:
a rearing solid trunk of grayish brown,
with textured yellow-green as canopy,
as if a living pillar wore a crown.

It seems a link from sidewalk to the sky,
or something placed as cloud support on earth.
Of all the trees the city planners try,
the camphor answers with its height and girth.

So as I walk, I hear the trimmer praise
the tree for sending roots so deep and neat,
that take to being pruned by loosing rays
of their perfume upon the old concrete.
And praise it, too, for never dropping gum
or sap or any sort of sticky plum.