Dogwood
—Poems and Photos by Jane Blue, Sacramento, CA
GO WITH ME, GOD OF THE DOGWOOD
Wind howled the rain sideways, horizontal
when I was young. My father
was gone. I walked, head bowed
into the wind.
Oh the elements when you are a child!
How you love them.
Go with me, god of the dogwood
and god of the rose.
My mother
pulled aside the homespun curtains
and showed me the Milky Way
like a storm against the sky.
Go with me, god of the dogwood
and god of the rose.
(first pub. in Fragments, an Internet
collaboration, ed. Dean Pasch)
Dogwood Buds
SNAPSHOTS
Tulip magnolias brave the cold mornings
bleed into frost. People take pictures of them
budding, satiny, in layers of magenta and cream.
They are like laundry on the bare branches,
freezing and thawing, freezing and thawing.
It's January in California and spring
pops up everywhere: camellias
dropping petals like ragged petticoats
from the laundry line; flowering quince
flaming from unleaved branches spiky
with thorns. Calla lilies poking up their
shafts, ready to unfurl into flowers.
People also like to snap pictures
of the moon. The moon is so close
they feel an intimacy they don't feel with the sun.
The sun turns its fire to us every day.
The moon hides its face, has phases
like we do, pocked as with some human
disease. With zoom lenses they feel
as close to the moon as to their hung laundry.
(first pub. in Avatar)
Calla Lilies
AT THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE
1
Through a second floor picture window
I'm eye level with the crown
of a magnolia, the first blooms of summer
that start at the top, creamy cups held
in sleek green leaves with their
suede undersides and I realize
I am alone.
2
Another day, outside, under the row
of magnolias on the street
someone has pulled out miniature
agapanthus from the planter bed,
strewn the little onion bulbs
on the sidewalk to be trampled. I think
a child jumped for the fine sky-blue
flowers. Children like to leap for flowers.
3
Once I saw a very small girl bobbing
in my window, appearing
and disappearing up and into
the dogwood tree, until her vague
father ushered her on, white petals
littering the lawn She wanted
only a handful of stars.
1
Through a second floor picture window
I'm eye level with the crown
of a magnolia, the first blooms of summer
that start at the top, creamy cups held
in sleek green leaves with their
suede undersides and I realize
I am alone.
2
Another day, outside, under the row
of magnolias on the street
someone has pulled out miniature
agapanthus from the planter bed,
strewn the little onion bulbs
on the sidewalk to be trampled. I think
a child jumped for the fine sky-blue
flowers. Children like to leap for flowers.
3
Once I saw a very small girl bobbing
in my window, appearing
and disappearing up and into
the dogwood tree, until her vague
father ushered her on, white petals
littering the lawn She wanted
only a handful of stars.
Eric Weaver w/baby Ray
A LEAF DROPS
for Eric Weaver
The rose vine after pruning
shoots up every day
like an animal, like a rooster
strutting in the morning breeze
after a night of rain.
Like a rare breed of rooster
with wattle and crest, it will grow
to the roof, the gutters, above the eaves.
Put up a wall of crimson roses,
yellow stamens at each center.
A dry leaf swirls slowly to the ground
and disappears.
And we are left here, disbelieving.
And the lilies and daffodils push up
out of their crumpled bulbs.
Which is the body and which is the soul?
The tulips, the mass of daisies
in the lawn.
And there is the sudden realization
that it is spring.
for Eric Weaver
The rose vine after pruning
shoots up every day
like an animal, like a rooster
strutting in the morning breeze
after a night of rain.
Like a rare breed of rooster
with wattle and crest, it will grow
to the roof, the gutters, above the eaves.
Put up a wall of crimson roses,
yellow stamens at each center.
A dry leaf swirls slowly to the ground
and disappears.
And we are left here, disbelieving.
And the lilies and daffodils push up
out of their crumpled bulbs.
Which is the body and which is the soul?
The tulips, the mass of daisies
in the lawn.
And there is the sudden realization
that it is spring.
(My son-in-law, Eric Weaver, died February 18, 2016)
Geraniums and Roses
A CAT SITS UNDER THE MOON
A man sings exuberantly in Spanish
up on the roof across the street.
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
The world as I know it doesn't exist.
A swimming pool takes up the old yard
filled once with the blue of delphiniums
and the red of roses; and a plum tree dropped
its little bitter fruit.
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
Looking through pictures I've saved:
a woman with a gaping hole
where her heart should be, a stream
gushing out of it.
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
Another woman cut from a newspaper
leans out a window, elbows on the sill
looking to the right "in the soft light of Italy."
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
up on the roof across the street.
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
The world as I know it doesn't exist.
A swimming pool takes up the old yard
filled once with the blue of delphiniums
and the red of roses; and a plum tree dropped
its little bitter fruit.
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
Looking through pictures I've saved:
a woman with a gaping hole
where her heart should be, a stream
gushing out of it.
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
Another woman cut from a newspaper
leans out a window, elbows on the sill
looking to the right "in the soft light of Italy."
I have died at least once
but I keep talking.
And a cat sits under the moon.
__________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Do not plant a garden until it has snowed on the Dogwoods!
—Ancient Legend
__________________
A hearty thanks and welcome back to Jane Blue for today’s fine Sunday brunch! These poems are all from her book, Obsession with the Dogwood (July 2018, Flowstone Press, Michael Spring, editor/
publisher). It's available at Amazon: www.amazon.com/Obsession-Dogwood-Jane-Blue/dp/1945824174/.
For more dogwood legends from the Dogwood Garden Club in the Sierra Foothills, see dogwoodgardenclub.org/legends-of-the-dogwood/. Another sweet blog from 2012, also from the Sierra Foothills, can be seen at salmonfishingqueen.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/snow-on-the-dogwoods/.
—Medusa, dreaming of dogwood and reminding you to set your clocks ahead this morning, if you haven’t already! (Celebrate Poetry!—and the Dogwoods!)
For more dogwood legends from the Dogwood Garden Club in the Sierra Foothills, see dogwoodgardenclub.org/legends-of-the-dogwood/. Another sweet blog from 2012, also from the Sierra Foothills, can be seen at salmonfishingqueen.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/snow-on-the-dogwoods/.
—Medusa, dreaming of dogwood and reminding you to set your clocks ahead this morning, if you haven’t already! (Celebrate Poetry!—and the Dogwoods!)
Jane's Cover
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.