Mid April already, and the wild plums
bloom at the roadside, a lacy white
against the exuberant, jubilant green
of new grass an the dusty, fading black
of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,
only the delicate, star-petaled
blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.
You have been gone a month today
and have missed three rains and one nightlong
watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar
from six to eight while fat spring cloudswent somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured,
a storm that walked on legs of lightning,
dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.
The meadowlarks are back, and the finches
are turning from green to gold. Those same
two geese have come to the pond again this year,
honking in over the trees and splashing down.
They never nest, but stay a week or two
then leave. The peonies are up, the red sprouts
burning in circles like birthday candles,
for this is the month of my birth, as you know,
the best month to be born in, thanks to you,
everything ready to burst with living.
There will be no more new flannel nightshirts
sewn on your old black Singer, no birthday card
addressed in a shaky but businesslike hand.
You asked me if I would be sad when it happened
and I am sad. But the iris I moved from your house
now hold in the dusty dry fists of their roots
green knives and forks as if waiting for dinner,
as if spring were a feast. I thank you for that.
Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.
Image credit: Unknown (originally color).
Thank you. This poem is one of my favorites--and the poet too.
ReplyDeleteI like Kooser's resonant plain-spokenness.
DeleteI have just discovered Ted Kooser on a blind date with a book project by our adult librarian at Jackson Madison County Library in Jackson, TN. This poem and the China Painters are my current favorites. 2-10-2017
ReplyDeleteI tear up every time I read this. My gifts from my mother's aren't the same as Kooser's, but she did give me thoughts about how I view the world, mostly its people and how to relate to them with kindness and empathy--qualities I carry through my life. I was very lucky and so was he.
ReplyDelete