Cottonwoods
Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2021 9:48 am
Through tangled vines that climbed the branches
blooming blue umbrellas,
I walked the path layered with leaves
through a cottonwood windbreak
to the widow's garden
seeking peonies in spring,
or late summer chrysanthemum.
Duke rested his dog head in my lap
while I watched the dizzy dance of ants
or prodded grasshoppers into action.
Corn rows stood at the end of our street
and beyond the corn my cousins' house
on their turkey farm:
open sheds of bulky birds packed wing to wing,
wrinkled necks stretched to observe.
Uncle Luntz said turkeys are dumb:
when it rains they look up and drown.
The cousins laughed and asked: who's dumb?
The bullet-back Hudson was missing paint
where the goats ran up and slid down.
Winter blew off Trotter's Hill so deep
the ragged remains of cornstalks went under.
Dad stopped going to work.
Our house was empty during the day
at night voices shouted in bedrooms.
Mom gave Duke to a neighboring farm
and the furniture to Goodwill.
I was sent to the city to live with Grandmother
who was bent and slow with arthritis,
accustomed to quiet, Quaker lace tables
and African violets planted in pottery
shoes, a straw hat, children with baskets,
placed on crocheted doilies lined up on ledges.
I learned to walk where floors didn't creak,
close doors without noise. I set the table with
Haviland china and answered Grandmother's
questions at dinner. Grandmother taught me
to say my prayers and avoid other children
who were not Lutheran.
In my room, dolls, and coloring books sat unused,
in the back yard was a cottonwood,
between garages the damp musk smell of
layered leaves offered passage back
to turkeys, goats, chrysanthemums
and the certainty that one day I could
rescue from the wire cage in that dark barn
where I'd gone to give him a last goodbye,
the dog to whom I'd made the promise
I would return.
blooming blue umbrellas,
I walked the path layered with leaves
through a cottonwood windbreak
to the widow's garden
seeking peonies in spring,
or late summer chrysanthemum.
Duke rested his dog head in my lap
while I watched the dizzy dance of ants
or prodded grasshoppers into action.
Corn rows stood at the end of our street
and beyond the corn my cousins' house
on their turkey farm:
open sheds of bulky birds packed wing to wing,
wrinkled necks stretched to observe.
Uncle Luntz said turkeys are dumb:
when it rains they look up and drown.
The cousins laughed and asked: who's dumb?
The bullet-back Hudson was missing paint
where the goats ran up and slid down.
Winter blew off Trotter's Hill so deep
the ragged remains of cornstalks went under.
Dad stopped going to work.
Our house was empty during the day
at night voices shouted in bedrooms.
Mom gave Duke to a neighboring farm
and the furniture to Goodwill.
I was sent to the city to live with Grandmother
who was bent and slow with arthritis,
accustomed to quiet, Quaker lace tables
and African violets planted in pottery
shoes, a straw hat, children with baskets,
placed on crocheted doilies lined up on ledges.
I learned to walk where floors didn't creak,
close doors without noise. I set the table with
Haviland china and answered Grandmother's
questions at dinner. Grandmother taught me
to say my prayers and avoid other children
who were not Lutheran.
In my room, dolls, and coloring books sat unused,
in the back yard was a cottonwood,
between garages the damp musk smell of
layered leaves offered passage back
to turkeys, goats, chrysanthemums
and the certainty that one day I could
rescue from the wire cage in that dark barn
where I'd gone to give him a last goodbye,
the dog to whom I'd made the promise
I would return.
