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SPRING Distractions
1999
"To the Thawing Wind"
by Robert Frost (you can read it at the Bartleby
Archives)
was the inspiration for this prompt.
"Give the buried flower a
dream." I thought of that line when I was outside in my February
garden where the bulbs are
already responding to another greenhouse
winter by breaking ground. Spring. Certainly not a new prompt for the
poet.
But I'm really looking at the end lines: "Scatter poems on the
floor, send the poet out the door" and thinking of Frost
heading out
there to clean that pasture spring and leaving the poems behind. You
go too. What is it that you do
when spring comes that will take you
away from your poems and writing? Write about something that takes
you away
from your writing in spring, though, like Frost, it
ultimately leads you back by its inspiration for this
poem.
For Spring
My mother has paced
impatiently
for the past bleak months
and I couldn't fathom why
but now that I see spring is
here
I catch my breath and sit out
on the front steps
to watch the winter float by
I have always loved the cold
and
the purity of snow
and she has always rushed to
get
her hands in earth
and now, for spring, I
understand
the need in the palm of her
hands
The ponies gambol down the
hill,
And toss their shaggy manes
until
The sun rakes through the melting
snow,
To find the thick brown mud
below.
Each pony rolls,
luxuriates;
And I brush mud that mats and
cakes,
Til each gleams smooth within the
herd,
And long soft hair lines nests for
birds
In the dark soil
by the ditch bank
I planted a root
of rhubarb this spring.
My small friend
is dying.
His skin is rich
brown,
so dark the doctors
say
radiation does not
work well.
Before the first leaf, the
rhubarb
pushes out a crimson nose, to
test
the climate before the veined green
unfolds.
Below his
necks brown skin
hides the tumor's
root and on the surface
a pink growth
shows,
the color of the
rhubarb nose.
Underground, I cannot see
the rhubarb root's invasion,
its strong sense of territory,
but the leaf on its single
stalk
is the size of the palm of my
hand.
For his village,
he, who
is 4'10" and weighs
105,
killed, with bronze
age bow and arrow,
an elephant for
food.
It took a long
time dying, he said.
I followed it
a week, then cut
off what I could
carry back.
Told everyone where
it died
so they could get
some, too.
Our old rhubarb plant before summer's
end
grows leaves the size of an
elephant's
ears. They shade the ground so
deeply
nothing grows below them.
The rosy tumor's
surface is the size
of Goliath's thumb.
I can see
it invading the
small neck.
I wait but don't
plan to see
a broad green leaf
spring
forth; beneath the
surface,
below that pink
nose, it grows.
The black green umbrella by my
ditch
spreads each day. Gradual change is
difficult
to see but I measure and
compare.
My friend's time
was measured in years,
then months, then
days. One minute
he will close his
eyes in that dark shade
where no grass
grows.
No more
pain.
This rhubarb's tall, central stem shall
never bloom.
Cut down and thrown aside,
it will shrivel, but
I will pull the crimson
stalks,
use the leaves,
the size of elephant ears,
to cover the soil around the
plant
and out of those bitter stalks
build a sweetened pie
that startles the tongue.
cold and damp i think of
you
remembering our meadow days
underneath that cloudless sky
were the two of us would lay
still i see the fields of
rye
were in my arms you used to
hide
free of worry, free of care
free to conquer the hate out
there
soon my love i'll be with
you
deep within your stony tomb
free of worry, free of care
free to live the love we share
April
Bone weary, body aching
from the bend of the knee
the stretch of the back
the push of the spade
the pull of the slim green
onion
reluctant to cede
its earthen bed
I can hear the robin trill
sense the sweet pea seed
unfurl
find the furry anemone tendril
beneath my hand as
I clear away winter's leavings
and imagine
the perfect garden.
He would remove the crusty gloves from
their spot
in the back of the garage, and gather the
trowels
that had lain next to them during the long
white winter.
We changed our clothes and slipped on old
sneakers.
I raced against an invisible clock as he idly
dressed,
eager to see my seventh glorious
spring.
We knelt, bodies juxtaposed over the
untouched soil,
and began to dig. His shovel turned
over clods of fat earth,*
while mine barely dented the ground as we
worked,
listening only to the scratching of metal on
dirt.
I would try to pull up the weeds as my
father did,
lifting them by their roots, but my small
gloved hands
and skinny stick arms just weren't strong
enough.
He would take my hand in his, gently and
carefully
lifting those stubborn green stalks one at a
time,
patiently uprooting them all until the ground
was clear.
We would take the marigolds from their
black plastic flats,
and allow their stifled roots to grow bigger
and stronger,
extending deeper, grasping the loamy
soil,
becoming anchors in the
ground.
Years have passed since I last gardened
with my father,
but we still share the spring. We stand
together again
on the dirt, but it is lighter, artificial--a
baseball diamond.
This year, when I can again sense the change
in seasons,
I will hold aloft a small white sphere,
like an unearthed weed.
"Daddy, look what I've got!"
*From the 365 Tao.
It's a tulip looking day
the smell of summer's promise
is on the young boy's shirt
and the baseball bat he swings
smacks a bouquet of daffodils and
poems
your way.
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