The Garden State
I keep an artificial hydrangea in my vase,
its pale blue shot-through with khaki.
In Jersey, we called them snowballs,
so much fuller than roses, so weirdly azure
with an under-shine of rust. Kind of like
my childhood New Jersey
still called the Garden State, despite
its constant rise of lobster houses
and glitzy hotels down the Shore,
pricy beaches that used to be free
thirty years ago, when my parents and I
drove from our city, to buoy ourselves in the swells,
churned in sand under each cool wave
until our lips turned blue.
~
I’m beginning to like the idea of a permanent
flower — its harlequin petals,
that one eye watching me,
viridian leaves always pointed towards heaven —
maybe because of what I’ve lost –
all the wonder of milkweed just now gone
to seed here in Wisconsin,
Monarchs’ chrysalides blown open
by new wings rushing to Canada.
How easily mothers and fathers die,
leaving their offspring to keep their kind alive.
It’s a miracle. Like memory can be,
how even my silk hydrangea
can usher me back to our garden’s snowballs
I’d get lost under for a long time,
their hide-and-seek lushness and quiet fragrance,
their trove of insects I would cup and touch,
place back in their tawny blue blossoms,
my mother always knowing where I was
as she eased open the window screen,
pinning our swimsuits on the line,
not yet calling me in for supper.