Cleaning Out the Garden

Melissa McCreedy

1.

We clean out a garden

Cutting the ivy around the wood anemone

And wild geranium.

I lift each tentacle of ivy

As she cuts until we find the root

And begin to dig.

She's brought over

Her pink peonies

From her hillside garden.

She asks me if we're thinking

About children.

2.

On the southwest side

Of their yard, my mother

And father built a bed

For the peonies

While the American Beech

Was still small.

Ten pound bags of soil

On my father's shoulder,

My mother mixed

A touch of manure

From Jack Madison's farm

Into the new bed.

3.

They need to be planted in full sun,

And shallow in the dirt,

Otherwise they will never flower.

When the buds come,

My mother's fingers would ease

Down the tiny stems

Of the peripheral heads

Only to snap them off,

Sacrifices along the way

No one tells you what you lose

And you forget yourself

Once the center head pops

An explosion of pinks,

Petals so heavy they drip

A rosy hue at sunset,

The mess of the center

The occasional red and orange flecks,

A Japanese favorite to paint.

4.

There were years

She waited for them to bloom

Only to have them torn down

In one sticky afternoon

Of thunderstorms.

5.

The shade was too much

Once the beech had grown big

Its knobby forked limbs

And waxed rust leaves expanded.

She sorted out

The pinks from the whites

Transplanting them

Into my garden,

This sunny nook,

Now that the ivy is cut back.

Shallow holes and gentle packing

I see the same purple veins

That I've studied

In the backs of her hands

In mine.

My mother feels sure

That the peonies

Will grow thickest here.

6.

They have the softest scent

So delicate, only noticed

In a confined room.

A breathy whisper

Or lullaby

Only half remembered.

© 2001 by Melissa McCreedy

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