Death and Taxus
Yews are old; in graveyards they tent over the dead, their berries blood heavy blackening stones. In our suburbs they crouch as battlements in front of ranches and bungalows whispering ‘Eisenhower.’ Their botanical call is the drum beat of perpetuity: Taxus baccata baccata Taxus repandens— the beat for the oarsman to stroke over Styx, the […]