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MY MOTHER’S TURKISH LILACS
ARE CUT DOWN
Their final heady bloom’s the lushest yet of thirty seasons,
The most joyous. Remember, the slip she planted
Under that far-gone summer moon was a gift
Of friends, long voyagers to Stamboul.
I, willing if unskilled, hacked open that raw hole
With the spade’s blade through hardpan,
Hauled in new suitable humus, excavated for her.
She was our keel and compass, I her tiller.
Now at noon, we are here, her children, to endure
And watch over the succeeding owner’s
Axe. Sap springs, the trunks crack. The green thicket
Of shade shrinks, shivers back, weathers
That pounding thunk. At last, the rootball’s grip,
Wrenched and heaved one time more, gives up.
Now this can be ripped free carefully, the quick crew
Carving off entrenched roots festooned and fastened
Deep as a temple frieze’s. Prised out, they hoist away -
The diesel bellow rings like a capstan’s stamping
Dance. Bark shunted off her deck’s foundation,
Much too close to the basement wall, scents
A crushed and sweet aroma, an outcry at landfall.
That’s why they are doing this, these crewmen, at her house
Which we can’t keep. A place we’ve known from birth’s no longer ours.
Tide’s turned, the bonds are broken. Yes, we’ll go. Old
Certainties, securities all liquid now. Each auction from here on
Is absolute. Brave in this westing breeze, then,
The first blooms. I, who have no talent for things cached
In dirt, do not grasp how, where to hide inevitable, deep-dug hurt.
What can be done? Suddenly sure, I know: pack with our amateur
Hands what we might save of plantings. Salvage them
Into damp bags, press rescued scoops of their own wet
Fecund earth upright for spindling sticks, the masts of cuttings.
Anchored by twine at evening, riding at ease from sharp
Wind by the lee, the sheltered side of her old road,
Still viscous, they are safe here, knowing which way
The sun goes. Our presence is both tribute and rebuke. Here:
You take some, please: Stranger in need of beauty,
Come have these, her latest bounty. If some neighbor
Who never knew her culls the rattling hulks of seedpods blowing,
She still will lift from earth a cascading foam of flowers - it’s
This darkest, dazzling, purpled blue, like wine spilled
On a running sea, the odor of it driven far out. So deep from home,
We cut the taut heel-rope of our anchor. Must cup
In our own hands the sacrifice we hold for sowing.
Strive now. Begin. Let this love, thriving and rising,
Spill over, blaze, beckon, surge to the far hills, green and growing.
First published in Hunger Mountain; finalist for the Ruth Stone Prize in Poetry.
Return to Index of Jeannette Barnes poems
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