I
My grandmother could spot spring
beauties under a curled shell of leaf
until her eyes - blue as
the aqua suit
she wore at 6 a.m. on her wartime
wedding day - began to fail her.
On loamy days in early April
she knighted wildflowers with the tip
of her bamboo cane - crocus,
snowdrops, the skunk cabbage,
recoiling from its ugly name.
She tilled dusky backyard earth,
cultivated jonquils and azaleas.
Strands of morning glories
drooped, gold horns flared
to the hummingbird in mute
offering. Now, an inky spot
like the center of a black-
eyed Susan blots her sight,
propelling sun, sky, and blossom
to the edge of her vision. The shadows
lengthen, turn like phantom
hands
around the sundial, spill
into the words carved on a brick
near the gate - Bill and
Jane, married
50 years. Her creased fingers bury tulip
bulbs in the sharp autumn soil;
small tight capsules of spring.
II
Before I was born, my mother
assembled exhibits on orchids
in a windowless room
in the basement of a Washington museum.
When my parents married
the plants came with her: a
yucca
bloomed in the corner; the cactus
- a gift from an Arizona
aunt - shot its spiny little
stems
in every direction, flaunting
gaudy orange flowers.
The long tines of the spider
plant
teased the back of my father's head
at dinner, until one evening
he finished it off with pruning
shears.
The plants choked the window
sill, squatted on top of the television,
sloped over my father's computer
screen. One day he tried to take some out
with the garbage; that night he slept
on the couch. Our neighbor's
yard
was a vast carpet of unadulterated
green; my mother let the dandelions
scatter over our front lawn
like
a handful of gold coins tossed
on the green felt lining
of the church collection basket.
III
When I left for college my mother
foisted plants upon me, and they died,
withering in my dorm room on
the radiator
over Christmas. They dwindled
in my first apartment, suspended
in macramé holders over my
one
cooking pot, languishing in the scent
of last night's dinner. Now, my flower
beds are overgrown with mint;
it struggles to escape the embrace
of the coiled hose. I cannot curb
the creeping mass of frosty-scented
leaves, or imitate my grandmother's
pristine rows of hyacinth, my mother's
stately boxwood. I will carve
out
my corner of the Earth, here, at the edge
of a brick patio behind a narrow house,
pressed between two other houses
exactly like it. Here, I plant
my grandmother's daffodil
bulbs, mailed from Indiana
with
cut-out seed catalog photographs.
My daughter, a chain of clovers
braceleting her waist, picks
purple-
tipped buds from the uprooted
shrub my mother gave me,
the one called Live-Forever.