Some thoughts on my magnolia tree

I love my magnolia tree. It is a huge, old tree, with a gnarly, twisted trunk, completely out of proportion to the Northwest DC backyard that it adorns; its shiny evergreen leaves are mere feet from my bedroom window. It was once home to an oriole who, for a brief couple of weeks, woke me with his song each morning. Then to a flock of rowdy sparrows that ate all my birdseed and fought with each other. (Note to self: orioles provide much greater pleasure:birdseed ratio than sparrows. It's nothing personal, sparrows.) My magnolia produces huge, ostentatious, beautiful white blossoms in the summer, but it also produces a huge, ostentatious, musky odor most of the time, necessitating scary chemical air fresheners in my room. I thought about writing a poem to my magnolia. Maybe a haiku. I'm not very good at poetry.

My magnolia tree
Once home to an oriole
You now stink up my room

Then I started doing some research online about magnolias, and decided that found poems do more justice to its majesty.

Magnolias are
small to medium-sized trees
noted
for their large, showy blossoms
in early spring. --Rosie Lerner, Purdue University

Or maybe

Please don't write to me
and describe a problem with your magnolia trees,
like leaves turning brown and dropping off,
or how to move a magnolia tree,
or brown spots,
or brown trunks
or what type of magnolia will grow in your area.
I probably won't know.--"The Essence of Magnolias"