Vegetable Planting Time

Feeling Earth 

Gelatin grew

in her tomato bucket,

maybe because she placed it

under a rain spout--

 Sodden soil

turned to rubbery plastic

black Jello speckled with white.

The plant grew wiry, thinned,

pushing through silicone soil

like pectinned grape all fruit jelly

or black cherry yogurt.

She kept repeating the image

smelling its changing forms

imagining flavors and tastes

and placing her finger in the soil

again and again,

until it bounced back,

repulsed by the spring.

Adding one poem to another!

Solitary Succulence

After rain

crushed sprouts from thinned beds

still smell like cantaloupe.

In a Garden on C Street

Crushed sprouts

from a thinned bed

smell like cantaloupe.

But pansies

clear away tears

cutting through snow

like sunlight

through a prism.

Mostly, though,

pansies help me sleep

on long nights

broken

by train whistles.

Out my window,

I still see them

rising toward the moon.

A Flower Poem for Cinco de Mayo

This poem really did grow out of my attempts to learn how to care for an orchid!

Overfull

She felt empty

but it was a just

a cylindrical hole

the size of a biscuit

or a slice of polenta

covered with

Lambrusco cream

easy to fill with food

or a large bottle cork

like the one she saw

on a friend’s kitchen

cupboard keeping

penne from spilling

to the floor.

Perhaps the empty feeling

meant she was overfull

ready to spill

or sprout roots

like the orchid without soil.

Fibrous

nearly weightless

water drained through

to the bottom plate.

The only way

she could tell

when to water

was to lift it,

plant and all

from its pot

to see damp mulch

clinging to

a pseudobulb.

Later she knew

she would learn

to water by weight

letting its load

lighten

before filling it up

but until then

she carefully placed it

back in its pot

fitting it

as tight as a cork.

Flower Poems for Spring

Daiva's Flower

or A Japanese Gangster Paints Flowers

In Takeshi Kitano’s Fireworks

Sunflower lions smile

bright yellow and green

with infinite centers of seeds

like grains of sand through a microscope.

Grained gold,

speckled with green

sunflowers beam

stretching upward in summer heat.

They lined our garden once

shading lettuce

shooting fire above the leaves.

I don’t remember if we roasted the kernels

but I can taste the sun

when memory says we did

Salty crackle, sweet crumble

like a coffee cake topping

I sometimes smell

when walking across sandy soil

where sunflowers roar.

Aunt Audrea’s Flower

In pictures you smile down at West Virginia ravines:

New River Gorge

Grand View

Or wave from burnished leaf-covered hills

but your face shines brightest among roses.

I can see you blushing pinks and reds

in Ritter Park’s rose garden. Or it might

have been Cypress Gardens with its clock

tower and choreographed water skiers.

In memory, you sit on a stone wall

along rows of velvet rose bushes--

A flower yourself,

your gardenia dress dances,

its full skirt keeping time in the breeze,

rhythmic crinoline bursting like Florida hibiscus.

Sitting on a cool patio

smelling sulfur from salty sprinklers

(water for hard green spiked grasses)

I watch you laugh,

your head pulled back in joy

your eyes smiling at us all,

And,

at least in memory,

we all smile back

wishing we too had such perfect roses to share.

Poems for Spring

The flowering trees have been spectacular this year, so I'm sharing a couple of pear tree poems:

The Tree House

My pear tree

grows tall

straight

budding

without fruit

good only

for bird feeding

watching

shading grass

on hot days

with dogs

flowering

on spring mornings

like a neighbor’s

Bartlett

where you

helped

pound stairs

in a crooked

trunk

because

you knew

how long

I needed

to jump

on a pogo stick

after

a meal

smelled

so much like

me

half-ripe

in summer

pear juice rolls down my chin.

After the Storm

The pear tree cracks

soft trunk opening

into milk coffee

broken rings swirl

            a spoon chases

melting sugar cubes 

 bark scatters

            black grounds soiling

                        a Formica lawn.          

Losing James Garner (Or Just Light the Damn Thing on Fire!)

Losing James Garner (Or Just Light the Damn Thing on Fire!)

Your boyfriend’s dead he says

I laugh

ask which one

but think of James Garner

my own Murphy’s Romance (1985)

staying for supper only if breakfast is included.

How do you like your eggs?

A sign maybe.

The amaryllis stops swallowing.

The cilantro dries up.

I hear people went to the wrong Roanake this weekend.

I remember stooping under a sumac

turning red under leaves

and listening:

Fragrant bobs attract bees.

Stems transform into pipes

fluorescing under ultraviolet light.

I fear

my toes will grow numb

harden and fall off,

useless and without scent.

I fear

I’ll say, “I’m 60,”

(Just like Murphy)

                                   

and the door will slam

leaving me outside

in the coming dark.

Tuesday Posts Begin: Poem for Mom

I spent some time with my mother a few weeks ago and was reminded of what a lovely and generous person she is. This poem is for her:

That Tangerine Bikini

Today I’m thinking about that bikini—tangerine

with gold clasps connecting lined cups and

panties—the one you surprised me with

my thirteenth summer, a distraction I guess

when we moved East, like the trip

to Twin Falls for trail hikes, pancake

tacos, and that bikini floating in the

lodge pool after a dive. You used

to shop like that—buying clothes and

gifts on the sly—not believing my

“nothing” when you asked me what I

wanted, even when I cut off the

Chrissy doll’s long red hair and stole

a brother’s Legos and skis.  That was

when there still were Sears catalogues, five

circles for Christmas,  question marks for school—

will you sew Butterick or get ready-to-wear?—

but shopping for shoes together, trying them

on side by side. And that orange

bikini—I wore it nearly a half

century ago. The first hand had not

yet sweltered in mine

and you

delivered

the towel.