Working outside on a beautiful day makes me happy and sad because my father-in-law lost his place {in virtually every sense} when a stroke complicated by diabetes forced him to sell his farm and move to a part of Texas with bushes f'r trees. Working on a character study. Meantime, suffice it to say that the last thing Dad said to me was "Remember I love you." xox 'Pea' xox

 
The  leaves on the redbud sprang up at the edge
of a wood and got moved by a two-legged beast
while still a baby are all heart.  I watch a breeze
oragami some to birds and others to butterflies.  
Day lemon-lit and full of mischief as a leprechaun.
Down toward the creek, trees too big to ask for ID's
wave banners they make themselves.  Weeds I call
flowers – violets,  bluets,  green-and-gold, and deer
and southern lady ferns that fight to stay alive
'twixt a rock and a hard place – are playing hide
with oaks too tall to be fair. Miss my father-in-law so.
Dad could not  get over the cedars NC Extension sold  
for a song.  That winter, ice killed four.  Wrote Dad
and he picked up the gizmo with the dang buttons
for a dial to shout Sorry all the way from Arkansas.
Coulda been playing with his tractor.  See him now.
Built on the square,  big ears squoze 'neath straw
more-or-less organized into a hat.  Eyes blue as overalls
on a line,  salt-and-silver cowlick, and easy laugh
keep Mom batting away devil's food pushing biddies
with Maybelline-startled brows. Good man hard to find.
A-a-a-a-a-men.  You watch.  He'll amble to the side yard
and – ahem – allow as how his loblollies grew a mite.  
Come from seedlings Son and I uprooted, knowing
if anyone could wean tarred roots off clay, it was Joe.
Mite?  Mite?  Off comes the tattered neck-rag.
Thinks dabbing hides the grin making wrinkles fan.
 "Sun turned me to a toad 'time I was knee-high
to a jackrabbit."  "Up at four, overslep'.  Twen'y-two
hours, a cow eats.  Gets rid of it t'other two.  Water's
gotta be pumped,  pigs gotta be slopped.  But breakfast
wudn' a bowl a shavin's.   Cholest'rol was a food group,
like fatback.   Why else would God think up a chicken?  
Egg had somethin' missin'.  Better make an animal
gives cream.  Somethin' t'churn  it  int' butter.   Yeah."
 
When marrage pushed Joe and Lily to town, learned
about jail.  Plant put Joe on was run by a whippersnap
scared he'd dirty is Florsheims.  Known smarter mops.
Good thing Lil pinched pennies 'til they howled.
Finally got up the down for a fis'ful a sorry lan'.  
(Think a mule balks, try a banker.)   Kin he'ped jack
the house square.  "Come 'roun' back," you growl.
Traipse past the shop, traipse past marigolds assigned
to guard tomatoes with fire and b.o.   Onions, snaps,  
lavender threatens to be okra.  "Cukes don' giveya
ga–" loses to a live tapestry woven of silk and colored
by Disney, then dye-bathed in shades of sun.  "Few,
Dad?"  I am Alice in Wonderland.  I am tripping, I am
floating, I am thanking stars for the talented soul
created the wonder "with a power'ful lotta he'p."
Imagine if soldiers planted their swords in iceberg
borne loam,  then thawed it with tears and the mist
from warm rainbows to make peace. . .and it flowered.  
Don't look, the horizon's gray.  Dad's leaning and looking
gray.   Sees I see, starts a bouquet.  Dried great, Dad, see?  
Put that mower away.  Got us weeds t'pick while it's light
If only you could stay.   Can't grow a glad to save me.

 

(c)  Phyllis Jean Green,  June, 2006