I am not just a writer. I am a gardener too. So I thought I might publish the occasional picture of my arrangements from my garden. Here saucer-sized hibiscus (given me by my mother-in-law–also a wonderful gardener) steals the show from Mexican hyssop, cone flower, astilbe and aster who all insisted on getting in the picture too.
Early Summer 2016Photos.app
She used to make:
• The ham biscuits
• The green beans
• The deviled eggs
• The potato salad
• The fruit salad
• The coconut cake
• The sweet tea
• The Easter Baskets
Now her energy is spent:
• Preparing the pimento cheese sandwiches
(Store bought pimento cheese this time
No longer her own special recipe)
• Dressing her husband and getting
Him into my sister’s shiny black car
(Once her own when she could still drive)
• And finding the courage
To climb the eight steps to my door
(Every one an effort)
She arrives dressed
In lovely lavender and a smile
Easter has come, yet one more precious time
© Jane Ellen Holliday Wilson
Where is my white lace?
I am Aliza
My breath is your breath
My consumptive lungs—your lungs
My broken heart—your heart
My son is dying slowly
One brain cell at a time
You may think him your father
I know him to be your child
I had to leave him alone so long ago
My baby boy of five
Take care of him
My son, your father
~~~
Indeed where is your white lace, Aliza?
Never met grandmother of mine.
Breath of my breath
Your lungs—now my lungs, free and clear
My beating heart—your heart
My father is dying slowly
One brain cell at a time
You may think him my child
I know him to be my father
We will not leave him alone this time
Your baby boy, now 85
I—you—we will care for him together as one
My father, your son.
© Jane Ellen Holliday Wilson
March 2016
Let’s Meet at Deetjen’s
Recently, my daughters and I took an enchanted trip to Big Sur, California and stayed at the magical Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn. It was very hard to leave. So I wrote this little poem to remember it by:
Let’s meet at Deetjen’s
Every year.
And wallow in the
Enchanted forest
Let’s read poetry
And sit with the redwoods
And remember the ancient truth
That all the earth is
Love reaching out
To hold us secure
Let’s embrace happiness–
Not the hairshirt–
As the wondrous
Mystery of
The mercy—
The gift
Of the all loving
Divine
Let’s soak in the warm
Tubs of sulfur
And gaze at
The constellations
Renaming each
One to our own
Liking
Let’s stay until
Our hands are pickled
And we have prayed
To the goddesses—Mary–
Fertility—Courageous
Ones.
Let’s sooth our bones
As the star—well,
Meteors really—
Dance across the
Early morning sky
Then sleep the sleep
Of the deeply contented
As whales go
Dancing and spouting
By
© Jane Ellen Holliday Wilson
New Years 2016
Heaven on Earth
Earth in Heaven
Floundering
It is dusk
I drive east from the
Retirement community
And think to myself alone,
“I am floundering.”
Do flounder actually flounder?
Or is it only a human thing,
This floundering?
I have seen a flounder
Fighting for her life
On the end of my fishing line
Wobbling, wiggling fretfully
This, I think, is different
(Or is it) from the
Floundering I am participating
In this evening
Struggling, staggering
To find my way
Wondering if I will ever find
The next place
The right words
The calmer
More settled state of being
Balanced, satisfied
These are the things I am longing for
As the sun sets behind me
It is in fear that the flounder
Wiggles and writhes
Wasting precious energy
Protesting the sudden upheaval
Of her circumstance
From her comfortable watery home
Different from my predicament
(Or is it?) Is this what I am doing too?
Chasing after some tasty morsel I cannot define
I discover myself hanging from an irresistible line
Chafing at the hook
JEHW
November 2, 2015
Heart Shaped Muffins
Heart shaped muffins
No special recipe
Just a store bought package
Add water
Bake
The worst possible
Assemblage of ingredients
No nutrition
Not even real berries
Only sugary blue things
But then, what is the
Nutritional value of
Love and water and flour
Mixed together
Baked
Slathered with rich
Creamy butter
And served to
My babies at the end
Of their school weary
Days
JEHW ©
October 8, 2015
In the Garden
A Summer Solstice Story
The longest day of the year is over and now we head
Inch by inch,
day by day
Into the darkening.
There is a sadness in
The garden today
It happened while we were
Away
On a little outing
To ease our own
Recent sadnesses –
A father lost,
Another forgetting,
A daughter suffering,
A pair of mothers
Wobbling.
But the garden sadness –
I fear –
May be of the worst
Variety
Mother Robin’s baby has
Drowned
They are clearly an extraordinary couple
Those two – Momma and Papa Robin.
They built a large nest right in the
Thickest part of the cherry tree.
That first morning we were here,
Groggy from unpacking,
Standing at the kitchen window,
I noticed something glittering
In that old tree.
As I opened the door, out popped Papa Robin
Pretty as you please.
He landed on the fence post and began to sing
The most uproarious of songs.
Pride mixed with admonition – come out here and see me,
But don’t you get to close now
I drew closer to the edge of the porch and that attached to that glittery thing
Was a plump and spacious nest.
Turns out the shiny thing was a carefully attached nosegay of Christmas tinsel
Silver, red, gold
As I watched the couple I learned how very proud they were of their unconventional home.
And to me it seemed a happy miniature of our own,
Grey porch
Flashy red door
And so on.
I thought we had chosen well indeed.
As we settled in
Began to dig in the dirt
Set up our feeders
Saucy Robin seemed
To delight in his good
Fortune – as did we
New soil, juicy worms
Why – even a bird bath below the nest
No need for foraging afar anymore
The couple didn’t bat an eye at the invasion of
Sparrows, finches, grackles and so forth – all showing
Up for our top of the line food
Those two were tough –
They could withstand anything
But it must have been the storm that rolled through
On the night we were away that did it
Summer solstice it was – longest day of the year
Because there she was this morning –
Sweet little fledgling thing –
Floating in birdbath
Would she have survived the fall if she had landed on the
Hard pebbles instead? Should we move the bath?
Change things up?
Those are questions for later.
Now, what is important is that I handle this sweet child with some dignity – the way I would want for my own – for her mother’s and her father’s sake.
I get the shovel
I dig a hole in the hard, dry ground
Right under that tree
I try to make it as deep as I can
I place the sweet child inside
Cover her up
Place tow sticks in the form of a cross on the breast of her grave
And another straight up at her head.
I go into the house
Gather some flowers –
The ones left over from my own sweet daughter’s
House warming bouquet
I come back to place the flowers over her only to find
Another stick has been stuck in the ground beside her
Hmmm…..
I smile, look around to find what I already know to be true –
There are no other humans around in this garden
There are only sad Robins
I place my flowers on her grave and offer up a hope – a prayer
As each day shortens, so too may the sadness of
Momma and Papa Robin.
JEHW
June 24, 2015
It’s So Easy To Dismiss Him
It’s so easy to dismiss him now,
This man whose mind betrays him.
This man once full of vibrant energy
Of hand-holding devotion
Of physical long-tall presence
Of booming lyric voice
Of cross-country travels
Who now sits, most days
Quietly on the sofa
Only rising to tend
His beloved bird feeders
Waiting for a visitor.
He struggles to communicate these days
His brow wrinkled in concentration,
Trying to process the smallest of things.
He forgets to eat, so he has grown
Quite thin.
A phone call home won’t detect
This lonely lost-ness
Now that he lets his wife
Do all the talking.
It’s only when you come for a visit
And you ask him,
“Daddy, would you like to go
For a ride in the car?”
That this gentle, polite man
Lets you know how hard this is.
“Oh please, can I go?
I’d give anything to
Get out of this place.”
JEHW
May, 2015
What I Like About Buzzards
Wobbly buzzards
Flying in the air
What I admire about them –
They are ugly and they just don’t care
They seem to hang out together
And work together
And play around in the sky together
Quite compatibly
They so amiably clean up
All those messes
That none of us
Want to face
JEHW
March 25, 2015
Blessed Release
Acorn
Oak leaf
Carved into mantel
Into piano
Clung to in memory
In fantasy
Rooted
Rooting
Forgive
The unforgivable
It is time to let them go child
Let them go
Breath deeply and
Let them go
JEHW
March 22, 2015
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