Pinus Plebiscit Poem by Douglas Scotney

Around Xmas time
the star-shaped top
of a hybrid pine
turns yellow.

It turns green again Xmas after.

For those turns
some want to call it pinus dafter.

For the yellow turn
some think pinus aster-gloria
or pinus proclaimer of merry laughter
(pinus bacchus is shorter) .

For the green return:
pinus revindis,
vindis being Latin for green.

There are names to burn!

One trooper,
whose tree's top turns red instead,
suggests the use
of pinus beteljuice,
after the giant star in Orion
and the nut that people chew.

The Right
is staging a plebiscite.

One wit
is immortalizing this voting time
and naming the pine 'Plebiscit'.