By DiVoran Lites
Hot pink flowers growing through green grass
Yellow cosmos glowing to be seen
Cherry laurel with a network of roots
Choke the yard. Call them choke-cherries.
A neighbor who owns a store knocks
On our door, wants to know if he can chop our
Chokers that grow yellow, inedible seed pods
That drop to the ground like accomplices to
The network of underground roots that choke out all other vegetation.
“I have too much energy,” says Giovanni “don’t want to spend it at the fitness center.”
We said yes, but tied a ribbon to the small, misshaped baby Magnolia
Which yearned to be free of overshadowing.
On Sundays, sometimes, we’d hear the crack of the ax
Against a tree and the ker-thump when the giant fell.
We never had one pang of remorse.
We and the magnolia wanted sunlight and at least a glimpse of blue
When most of the cherry laurels were gone,
The magnolia began to grow.
It was warped and scraggly and would never be anything but a runt.
Didn’t look like other magnolias, but it was free now and perhaps someday we’d pick a big flower from its
Boughs and wouldn’t have to ask someone else in the neighborhood
For a blossom to put in on a bowl where it could fill our olfactories with
Fragrance and our eyes with its creamy white petals and bright yellow filaments.
One day, I suppose it was a few years later,
I happened to look out a high window
To see the Magnolia tree, though still not shapely,
Reaching with its grateful branches
Into blue background
Taller than the remaining cherry laurels
With every dark green leaf polished to a flash.
In my mind the tree
Told me all it had needed was light
And there it was, thriving,
Giovanni thrived, too
And fairly newly married has
Possessed a baby son,
Giovanni may be seen every day walking the
New walking child
On cold days the tot wears a thick white sweater with a fuzzy, matching cap.
Sometimes you see them with the stroller coming home from store up near the highway.
Maybe someday they will chop trees or hike the world just to be together and spend their energy.
And the magnolia with be white with flowers.
Reblogged from Old Thing R New
Thank you for sharing!
