garden songs
poetry, film and aimless words inspired by the wild yard
Two places where my mind dozes off are in my wild backyard and the shower. As my hands yank weeds and plug smooth seeds into hopeful soil, my most private thoughts release, oftentimes stringing words into poems or a sputter of streaming thought. This is the first time I’ve shared them, my innards, which span three springs and summers. If you’re utterly bored or worse, disappointed, I’ve paired them with film photos in that very backyard where these thoughts bloom and die. So maybe you might find yourself fulfilled in some way.
Lilac Harvest
I grow my thumbnail as I watch the lilacs slowly bloom on my little plot of land.
Harvest is coming. Should it deserve exclamation?
Harvest is coming!
I prepare for the ritual.
My thumbnail snaps the flowers from their bitter green sepals
as each drifts into the bowl beneath me;
you are no longer needed.
Pillowy, fragrant purple blooms fill the jar as my mind drifts in and out of thought,
most of which I’ve now failed to remember. They collect next to the others somewhere in a vault I cannot reopen.
Vivaldi whispers into the air in the background.
My hands grow older, recklessly wiser,
and I think about time.
It means nothing. It means everything.
I pour the honey over the purple flowers,
suffocating them in sweetness.
Too Many Metaphors
The day I block you,
the peony cracks open and blooms.
The cactus I propagated from the bouquet your parents gifted me births two soft, chartreuse paddles.
The elephant ear sprouts open from the bulb.
The plants are telling me something,
but I’m unwilling to decipher their message -
a petal poem of hope, I’m afraid.
I begrudgingly water the sunflowers you gave to me;
they are doing too well.
She Talks to the Trees
A dark head moves through the yard.
My daughter traces her redundant laps,
which look like this:
the path east to the small, stubborn-to-grow dogwood tree
where she twirls around the trunk with her tiny hand,
the one that looks like mine and my mother’s,
then to the bird feeders;
and if they are low on supper,
she darkens her now hazel (once blue) eyes to me.
No words are ever needed: Fill it, Mama.
Her sweet hums fill the air along with the symphony of chirps and buzzes.
She wobbles her way west to the water hose,
pausing for a few opportunities to squint her face and smile to the sky.
I should properly loop the hose around its holder,
but that’s for another day.
Her eyes fixate on the nozzle and then on me until I meet her tender demand.
She blooms under the spray of water,
my little fish.
A rainbow greets us in the mist
I dismiss the need for pointing out the colors;
that’s for another day, too.
Water soaks the earth,
the plants and weeds sing a song of gratitude, only she hears it.
The soaked goldenrods bow.
I insist it all grows fulfilled this way.
In the Garden
The roots tear away from the earth.
I tip
sdrawkcab,
stunned at the handful of gnarled, spiky vines and dusty, defeated roots.
The wild blackberries have taken over again.
Each redundant pull, I submit
with glee-
an entire lack of resolve.
Cricket Song
Night falls in place around me. A clunk of darkness makes its way closer to daytime. I sink into my room, alone - on standby from the world, my child, or my lover. There is a balm in being tucked into your bedroom, away.
Pants become undone, shirts slink off, and fingers find their way into our noses as we move about our most sacred space. Our most familiar room. No viewers to witness your blueprint of weird. Your strange tics and obsessions are held here. The walls only know you as this form: this alien, in best form, as best self, within this sanctuary of space. Crickets continue to sing to the inky night as I slip into sleep.
8.28.theyearmeansnothing
I have a thing for moonflowers. I love how they climb, bending and contorting their upward ascent out of pure instinct (and sometimes spite). There’s something tragic and poetic about how their blooms open for only one night, releasing perfume and an exclusive show. I desire this form of anticipation. Keep me on my toes. Forever yearner.
Every spring, I put dozens of seeds into the earth so that in the summer they yield blooms so frequent that I don’t think much of it; their performance is expected. This summer, only one moonflower vine survived. I forgot to buy more seeds. I was just tired, and things like that can slip my mind when I have so much on my plate.
The truth is, I hadn’t witnessed a single moonflower crack open and reveal itself all summer long from this sad, solo vine. Until this morning.
This morning, when I let Grant outside - still in a buzzing haze of you and desire from last night, a slight smile imprinted on my face even at 6:00 a.m. - the moonflower greeted me. Its ivory bloom was larger than my palm, its delicate petals paper-thin. I smiled, buried my face in it, inhaled, and thought of you. Metaphors about loss and love and chance couldn’t help but seep their way into my brain. My first (and perhaps only) bloom all summer long, caught this morning on the eve of my birthday. I’ve become thankful I didn’t have the time for the other seeds because this right here, when the timing is right, when I’ve woken up just in time, this is everything.
