The monkey puzzle tree - edit #1

[RiverNotch]

Just a few comments. All in all, this is really, really great! I find the tree to be a sort of metaphor for growing up, with the relatives being, somehow, related to the idea of the dust somehow choking out the aunt, and with the speaker being the inheritor of the lonely nature of the aunt.


The monkey puzzle tree
 
I can’t climb the monkey puzzle tree.
It’s not just the pointed scales  
on branches tangled together
like a mad woman’s knitting. Great image! I see the great aunt of later being the mad woman in this image.
The white dust that covers them
puffs into my eyes and stings. Instead of eyes, maybe nose or lungs? It does increase the kinship of the speaker to the aunt....*
I can’t pick a clear path up
from branch to branch.
 
They’re from Chile originally; there are
no monkeys in Chile. This one grows
in my father’s aunt’s front yard. No garden, "father's aunt's" is a bit of a mouthful; I would prefer "great aunt's". And "front yard", I think, would be more natural sounding if shortened to "yard".
no shrubs or flowers, just this tall ugly tree 
in the sandy soil beside the estuary, some
marram grass clumps here and there. I don't think "clumps" is needed there, plus it sort of breaks the rhythm.
 
My great aunt has died. Relatives "My great aunt is dead" would probably give that statement more power, as well as fit with the direct declarations opening the other stanzas.
are cleaning and sorting out her house.
She had bad lungs. Mum says
bad lungs run in that side of the family. I sort of see how "father's aunt's" plays here, but still.
She says I’m too young to help. I find it more natural a mode of speech if the speaker connected this to the earlier sentence with "also". "She also says..."
 
I have nothing to do but wait.
I listen to the whisper of wind
through the tree, watch as clouds
of dust from the cement works
on Marsden Point make their way *...and it would make the nature of the dust then seem more in line with the nature of the dust here. Whereas the dust blinding the speaker earlier would imply something about the dust simply being a blinding element, here, it manages to evoke a greater sense of setting, which isn't really blinding to anyone.
slowly over the water
towards me.


Thanks for the great read!