In summer the garden was all she knew,
and the blossoming flowers of her several griefs:
skyblue Shiryuko Iris, Ki-ren Jyaku – the double flowering hosta.
She looked them all up in his encyclopedia of lonely days.
Love and despair were all she had but for the garden.
She walked among the daylilies – Heaven and Nature Sings,
singing those mournful Sunday hymns passed on down
by her grandmother. And taught by that woman’s holy care,
a generation of long agos, she learned to cherish those seeds,
the time of planting and rain and love. Hers was the First Blush
as he took her careless among the hosta. Her naked brown bottom
held tight against the moist earth in summer rain.
His was not a gentle hand, but the voice of kisses and promises:
Onyx and Pearls she would possess if only she would remain
inside his kingdom. So, she let down her hair.
And now in his absence, she strolls among the green memories
down the garden path. Her womanly duty recalled
as the titles of books on his shelves. As the daylilies sway
in the breeze, her grandmother’s legacy of love.
I call this inspiration the gift:
when I awake with a poem ripe, a sweet fruit I can pluck
from midnight’s fecund tree. I light the bedside lamp
and find myself, sleepless, awake and alone
on a drowsy island of wonder.
I anoint my ears with the balm of music’s fragrance:
the rhythms of jazz echoing through my room.
I live in this house built on a foundation of dreams.
I hide within omens foretold upstairs in the attic.
I rise and turn off the radio,
seize my notebook and in contemplation the helix reveals
this gene for poetry bestowed by my ancestors.
Two o’clock a.m.:
alone in the attic
I crack roasted sunflower seeds with my front teeth
trying to recapture the revelations of a muse.
The muse is you and the quiet desperation for poetry you inspire.
I send up a thankful prayer
I know will be answered
by the ritual of a poem this night.
From where do they come?
These sweet dreams? These truths?
These gifts?
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