not always contrary,
Just why did this garden grow?
Did you plant enough seeds
To crowd out the weeds?
The question is…
How can any of us really know?
If you check and look closely
Row upon row
Perfect spacing and timing
Takes just the right knack.
And when it all over,
when it’s all said and done
will you tell me then,
Just who had your back?
garden, with Grandma and Nancy
Blue Springs, MO
circa 1961
reminiscent of youth,
with undulating subtexts.
surging into the clouds
of mythology to increase doxology.
With power constrained
by rules of men, riding
fiery chariots over all.
High above, and
we mere mortals,
know…
pretend.
What, you thought I was talking about me?
While I’m certainly not perfect,
my growth has been better than this.
vegetable garden, first day of summer
Anchorage, Alaska
with feelings of belonging for
school Open House and
seeing others we know.
Our world begins to disappear with looking closer, to find the edges
which are now blurry to the touch.
Taking on new form.
To transform the familiar and create
new windows of opportunity.
Fall fog on Madison Way
September 14th, 2010
is missing as Fall draws near
“Close the window,” says Keelin. ” It’s noisy.”
So, we shut out the Holiday noise
of leaf blowers, while we wait for our fall to snow from the birch trees in the backyard. Coming down and nestling
within the last of the blooms while the sun lowers on the horizon
and shines through, bringing them back to life.
While the weed whackers drone, we put those sounds with the plane
right over our heads as we admire the sky which hid from us all summer.
and moves us on toward winter and soft sounds where the snow comes down
and all of our neighbors’ hard work will be covered. Until they bring out the leaf blower and blow away the beautiful white, silent snow.
roof top garden
September 6th, 2010
heralding the end of the Alaskan summer, where summers have no real sounds, except for cars on the highway, planes in the air, magpies screeching in the trees.
Summers so different from my childhood, where the moon made no difference.
In my summers, cicadas were thrumming loudly, June bug skins on screen doors to be picked off.
The smell of tar, sticking to your bare feet with gravel crunching under bike tire wheels, the taste of wet foods, none to cook.
Legs burning on car seats, breathing labored with hot, wet air reverberating with the fierce heat lightning, one thousand one, one thousand two…
But the moon always came with a promise of reprieve.
This moon, like a street light, where my streetlights were barrels.
Rusted with flames licking out around the edges as our summers burned away in our yards.
And the harvest moon overshadowing the end of those summers.
moon from rooftop garden
August 25th, 2010
was spent at “the store.”
The Store was in the middle of Nowhere. We lived there, but we didn’t Live there.
Traffic flew by, going East to West, West to East while visitors to The Store wanted to know why there were fences,
“Wasn’t this Open Range?”
“Don’t you ride a horse to school?”
Pull into the drive and up to the pumps. Fill ‘er up little one, who could never stop the gas on the right amount of money. So, reduced to dusting the merchandise, paid in Taiwan junk.
While dad takes the long stick and dips it in the huge tanks to see if we have enough gas for all of the travelers. Come in and eat, please buy a Kansas treat.
Those travelers, who he will let stay in the lot for free, waking me because they slam the dryer button, not knowing I’m inches away behind the cinder block.
Everyone safer with them on the lot and us inside.
Sneak out behind the counter for breakfast of pecan pancakes and chocolate milk, before getting ready to bus the tables. Vacuum the floor. Talk to the families who also work The Store to help make ends meet on the family farm. They married young, with hair the color of the wheat. Working hard, here and there.
Sneak back to the kitchen after closing at night. Take the frozen coleslaw, tangy and cold. The only cold thing in a Plains summer.
And as the evening would come down, and the darkness began, we took to the highway.
to be at the gas station where my brother worked, for closing time. Into the busy town, pulling in at dusk. Sitting to the side, watching people fill up.
“Why do we sit here?”
“So that he won’t get robbed.”
“We can’t do anything if some one decides to rob the place.”
“They see us night after night and they go elsewhere.”
And with the money safe in the bank, we head out of the city, back to The Store. With people sleeping in the lot. The coleslaw in the freezer.
To finish one long summer in 1971.
In the middle of Nowhere that people called Paxico.
join Emily's imperfect prose
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