Euphorbia (African Milk Stripe Plant), Sonnet #380

For Ruth on Our 40th Wedding Anniversary, 11/27/77

I bought this for your 21st birthday

In September 1975.

It was just one slender emerald stem —

Our wedding still two years, two months away.

Not only did your care keep it alive,

There are now more than a dozen of them

Inside our home, grown as big as the first,

And yet more — all cut from the mother tree —

We’ve given to our friends and family.

They need little water and do not thirst

For much but light — yours and that of the sun.

The plant has spines more hurtful than a rose,

But I’ve never been pierced by one of those.

So much life, love. You are the only one.