Trees and Bushes

A connection to my father through greenery

 

Trees and Bushes, A Birthday Tribute

 

We began with trees and bushes,

our connection forged in greenery

not severed by death.

Was I four or five or six

when I followed the mower path

to pick up moist grass clumps?

The pickax came in handy to dig great holes

for curbside sugar maples.

Forsythia and our patio’s thick-vined arbor

helped make the yard complete.

 

The next house formed

my long held prejudice

against the roses and messy trees

you criticized, the Chinese elm

a target of your barbs

until Doris or Agnes or some other storm

blew it down and blocked the street

leaving its great limbs prone

awaiting the town’s chain saws

to carve it for firewood.

 

We worked together in this yard,

planting a row of hemlock trees

digging ditches for a sprinkler system,

growing and loving the mimosa

saddened when it died of wilt,

planting, weeding, trimming, mowing;

I learned to do it all with your guidance.

I knew how to make things grow,

how to capture nature in a yard,

how to find peace in planting.

 

I carry your hows and whats with me

when I spray dormant oil on peach trees,

when I add ash from winter fires

to help my plantings grow.

I alloy your instruction

to my artist’s sense of form and color.

My urge to grow chaos into beauty

is welded to your meticulous

graph paper drafts of gardens,

drawn on my mind’s canvas.

 

As I look at buddleias and butterflies

at climbing roses I’ve overcome

your prejudice to purchase,

at the happy weeping cherry

you got for me at my request,

as I plan my next trip

to Cheap Sam’s nursery in your memory,

I know where our paths cross

where my life comes from yours,

where I remember you most.

Reviews

[Eric]

How can a poem with the words "forsythia," "hemlock," "mimosa," and "weeping cherry" be anything but beautiful? Seriously. This piece is verdant with a hint of sadness.

For those of you who read this I strongly suggest that you do so three times. Like a yard in the gloaming, you simply must slow down to enjoy the beauty of Trees and Bushes.

I'm glad you sent this to me David.

[Lionel Braud]

The next house formed
my long held prejudice
against the roses and messy trees
you criticized, the Chinese elm

like the metaphors here, metaphors for human relationships, the stanza, not in style, form or content, it just reminds me of Frost "Fences Make Good Nieghbors", but only in that stanza,

also the crossing paths which reverts back to the Chinese Elm, the weeds, those things which we regard unsuitable to our tastes we immediately disregard, i like how this last stanza reverts back to this concept, reinforcing the notion of relationships, a verbose passing and tresspassing.