Holding on to Beauty

It had been a drag-ass day at the law firm,

But it was Friday; the hang up your coat,
Kick back for the weekend goal day.
The baby-sitter had left supper in the oven.
It was time to look in on her five year old son
And invite him to sit down and dine with her.

 When she opened up the door to his room

She gazed upon a world in bloom.

 “Maria helped me gather them,” he boasted proudly,

“But it was all my idea.  I’m gonna have
The most beautiful room in the whole world.”

 Black-eyed Susans peered up from a teddy bear’s lap,

Daisies were arrayed in neat rows on the floor,
Buttercups filled the bed of a red Tonka truck,
With more in his toy box, some taped to the door.
Blue coneflowers waved from an open drawer;
He’d placed wood sorrel on the windowsill.
Atop the desk he liked to sit and read in
Were wild lupine, plucked from a nearby hill.
St. Anne’s lace huddled with wild geranium;
He’d gathered dandelions and didn’t think it odd
To mate them with harebell in another pile, just as
Sweet William from the meadow lay with goldenrod.

 “I would have picked some of your roses, too, Mom,

But Maria wouldn’t let me touch them.”

 “Your room is very beautiful,” his mother agreed,

Thinking to herself of the terrible mess
Of wilted leaves, brittle stems and dropped petals
That Maria would soon have to clean up.

 Indeed, by Sunday evening the leaves had wilted,

The flowers, their colors already less vibrant,
Were petulantly weeping their petals.
The young boy was disconsolate with grief.

 “My flowers are dying,” he tearfully sobbed.

“I’d wanted them to stay with me all winter.”

 His mother put her arms around him

Protectively, wishing that she could shield him
From all the hurt that he’d ever encounter in life.
She wished that she knew how to frame her words
To reach out to console him, to touch him now,
Before his awestruck wonder pales to blasé;
Before the poety of flowers  no longer moves him.

 “When Spring parades its colors,” she finally began,

“Everything’s lovely.  But beauty that’s living
Will always fade.  You can’t grab hold of it
To save it in a cupboard for a rainy day.”

 The young boy smiled weakly through his tears

As he hugged his mother and assured her,
“You’re a living thing, mom, and no matter what,
You’ll always be beautiful to me.”

 The young mother began to tear up herself,

Thinking of the man who had praised her beauty,
The man who had vowed to never leave her.

 He did.

 She knew that her boy would someday leave her

As well, as all sons will do.
They leave the nest in search of a life,
Then a mother’s primacy is replaced by a wife.
It is just the natural progression of things,
As certain as wilting flowers, and death.

 “I love you so much, Ethan,” she whispered,

As she locked him in a possessive embrace;
Wanting at this moment to never let him go,
Wanting so to hold him close to her

 As long as she possibly can.

 

                       Rich Hanson

The Mother Tree Trilogy (Three Spoon River Poems)

Rebecca Parsons

My heartsick parents drove their wagon
Into Lewistown to seek a doctor for me;
But it was no use.  I was six months old
When I died of the whooping cough.
Having no money to pay for a proper headstone,
My mother hesitatingly asked the sexton
If she could plant a tree to mark my grave.
The slender sapling took hold.  Eventually
Its roots embraced the rude wooden coffin
That had become my eternal cradle.
My maple whispers to me of the golden sun,
Nurturing rain and rich back soil.
It reassures me when I hear the crack
Of thunder during fierce summer storms.
I can feel my tree stretch toward the sun
As it sprouts its leaves to welcome Spring.
You were so wise, Mother.
How did you know that the tree that you planted
To mark my final resting place
Would become my teacher, protector and friend?

Rachel Parsons

The small sapling that I planted to mark
My daughter's grave was watered
With my tears as I slipped it into the earth.
I tapped the ground around it tenderly,
Pulling it up against the trunk of the little maple
As I would've my daughter's blanket around her.
I prayed that it would take root and grow
To become my baby Rebecca's protector.
Then I had to move on, following my husband
On a trek that had taken us from Buffalo
To this village of now bitter association,
To what we'd dreamed would be a better life
In Texas.  We did prosper,
But I never could conceive another child.
We were wealthy enough at the time of my death
To allow my husband to honor my last wish.
He sent me back here
To be buried near this now majestic red maple,
Close to my daughter.

Betsy Bannister

As the daughter of the sexton
Who'd recorded burials at Oak Hill Cemetery,
I'd heard the story of the young mother,
Never dreaming that it would pertain to me.
Then the gift of the body that I gave in love
Left me with a faithless man's parting gift.
Ashamed of my gullibility, and fearful
Of what my parents would think of me, and how
This town's narrow-minded prudes would react,
I covered my growing shame in loose dresses.
I resented the seed that had been planted in me
Until in the seclusion of a nearby woods
I gave birth to a stillborn little girl.
Sadness overwhelmed me as I gazed down
At her tiny hands, her delicate body, and her face
Wreathed in the innocence of sinless repose.
During those moments I would've given my life
To have given her the opportunity to breathe.
I thought of that other mother of years past
Who always mourned the loss of her daughter
And begged before death to be buried near her.
That evening I slipped out of the house,
Retrieved the sad little bundle that I'd hidden,
And buried her close to the Mother Tree.

I dare not ask to be buried near her.

Letting Go of Louise

(A poem written for my wife, Nancy,
 Shortly after the death of her mother, Louise.)

I wish I could weave the language of love
Into a comforter to keep you warm.
I wish you could take my prayers with you
As lanterns to illuminate your path.
I wish that my embrace could hold you back
From your appointment with eternal sleep.
I wish that I could accompany you
For part of your story, like Orpheus,
Who dared Death's dark realm for his beloved.

Like you stood with me my first day of school
As we waited together for the bus;
That big orange Bluebird coming to wrest me
From the security blanket
Of my home's familiar surroundings.
Unlike the old Marvin Rainwater song,
I didn't want to "find me a bluebird" that day,
But you lingered there with me and held my hand.

Now it's your turn to go away.
I've never seen a baby enter this world
Without anguished tears and wails;
It's tiny fists flailing at the indignity
Of being pushed from the comfort of the womb.
I've watched too many friends leave this life
With a final sigh of welcome relief.

Mom, I'll be there to hold your hand
Until the end, but I can't go there with you.
Take my love with you though; like a nightlight
Let it be there to comfort and reassure you.
If there is an afterlife, may yours be
As beautiful as the lake you were named for.