Considering the Magnolia
The
magnolia sheds all year like the
rest of
us, losing a little life here
and
there, leaves letting go and drifting as
they
come to rest on what is now the bare
ground
beneath the tree, recent shade moving
in
underneath as the base spreads wide with
maturity.
Forget her letting go
of her
clothes at once like the maple, who
releases
her pinwheels at the same time,
then
goes blank with winter, or the sweet gum,
dropping
aggressive prickly balls on the
grass so
we turn our ankles, then tossing
star-shaped
leaves after months of moving from
green
to red to brown, piles of all them waiting
to be
turned to mulch by the city. The
magnolia’s
leaf buds seem hard to tell
from
the flower buds if you’re not from the
south,
this imported visitor, waxy
and
eternally green as a hemlock
or
holly, as outside the usual expectations
as a
bald cypress in dead winter, the
one
conifer we have learned will go bare.
Brood Parasite
I
looked for the thrush, heard his call but could
not
spot him in the thicket woven from
grapevine
and poke weed, bright green shoots of thorned
multifloral
rose shooting out in all
directions
from an ancient stem. What kind
of
invertebrates was he seeking on
the
forest floor to bring home to the nest
where his
mate sat protecting cowbirds eggs
after
her own were scattered on the ground?
Meanwhile in Houston
One
morning, the cardiothoracic
surgeon was shot while cutting
across the
bike
path from his car to the hospital
by a man whose mother had died on
the
table
with her chest cracked open. Hundreds
of his former patients showed up at
the
undisclosed
funeral, their hearts breaking.
Irreconcilable Differences
If you
had not done this, I would not have
done
that. Because I said, you did not. When
you
reached, I let go. As I entered, you
left.
After you told me, I forgot. Though
I knew
you were coming, I did not show
up. Since
you could tell I wanted you, you
looked
away. Unless I disagreed, you
would
not be agreeable. Whenever
you
called, I refused to answer my phone.
Wherever
you searched for me, I was right
behind
you. While I opened the curtain,
you
said accept this darkness as your own.
Stripped Bare
When
you get the call saying you need to
come
now if you want to say goodbye, don’t
hesitate. Drive through a night for days, buy
an over-priced
ticket, hop a train, get
off
your ass and walk across the street, make
that
fifteen-minute trip you’ve been putting
off. Otherwise, you might not see what I
saw,
receive what I got, the warmest smile
full of
all the love she could not give me
when
she was doing anything other
than
dying right before my eyes. How she
lit
with a glow I wish I’d seen before,
when I
was a child and frightened of her.
We
might have shared for longer than our few
full
minutes at the end had we been stripped
bare by
death on a regular basis.
by Sandra Kolankiewicz
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