Here are the final three stanzas of a longer poem I wrote about twenty years ago called “Were You There?”
I remember
before I went to school,
when I was three,
visiting my mother’s ancient aunt
in the Masonic home, in Elizabethtown Pa.
My father and I walked the foggy misty gardens.
Many steps, smell of boxwood.
How does boxwood smell?
Sharp as goldfinch comments,
intimate as bodies close up,
crunchy and green, dark green,
that’s how boxwoods smell.
And we heard the sad murmur of the mourning doves,
flutelike and saying
everyone dies, everyone gets old,
most of us get blind.
In the dark hemlock of age,
arbor vitae of love,
blue spruce of winter,
boxwood of borders,
a name that means twin.
I don’t want to put my fingers
into the holes in your hands,
and even less do I want to put my hand
into the wound in your side
that speaks death to me
like a misplaced mouth.
I will be glad to say that I believe you are back
from the dark,
and I will be glad to say I believe them
when they tell me they have seen you.
<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/foggy/”>Foggy</a>
