The gingko should have been spared
when the yard man came and wiped out
all the peonies, iris and columbines.
When the wisteria was pulled
down
from the lower limbs
of the sugar maple
and the mystery lilies pencil thin leaves
were mowed down and
lost the places
where blooms would have
erupted
in August,
the gingko living behind
the slanted house held up by honeysuckle
the untended home with empty window-eyes
should have been left alone
to grow its fan leaves
shaped back in
dinosaur days,
hardy as ever
with no need to evolve,
should not have met the chainsaw
should not have been slashed
left like a fence pole
at the edge of the bloodroot
still surprised to have it’s silent growth
interrupted
by so much ignorant noise.
4 comments:
Hey Myra,
I've got some comments on the poem (always, first, the poem!) and then a story for you...
I like this simple little elegy. I don't know if the regret on offer in the poem extends to the missing gardener but I understand the sorrow over effort mowed down.
While the emotion is clear, the poem left me with a bunch of questions:
Who was the gardener behind those "empty window-eyes"? Where has she/he gone? Also, why would a yard man need to destroy the garden? If he thought they were weeds, he isn't a very good yard man, is he?
Is the house being torn down?
And now for the story. We bought a house downtown, the first in a row of derelict houses that were slowly being renovated by the community.
We had just moved in when I heard a loud noise nearby. I looked out the front door and saw that a young man was swinging a weed whacker at the lily of the valley that had been growing - to my great pleasure - from the gumbo and gravel at the side of the house.
Shocked to see me emerge from the house, he explained that he had been told to keep the weeds down around this stretch of empty houses.
"Well, we live here now," I explained. "So the house isn't empty."
I showed him the waxy flower emerging from one of the plants he hadn't whacked.
"And those aren't weeds."
Yeah, the house is empty, gardner friend died years ago and it's passed into the hands of stalled developers. We're tryong to salvage some more plants befoer it's razed.
I've been thinking of this all day... ginkos are superb, ancient, gorgeous... I'd like a different title...
arboricide or ginkocide or ?
Thanks, SMS. I was searching, and you helped.
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