Writer/Poet:  Erika Simone

Bloom

Spring has ascended

from its annual resting place

as indicated by

popping bluebonnets

and plants leaning

into sunlight:

east then west

 

and up uP UP;

they close at nightfall,

roots expanding below

ground to soak up

sporadic showers

and the nitrogen

they call upon

for their own survival;

awaken at dawn, beside

sprouting hints of

verdant buds of

what-have-you.

 

The tackling of unwanted growth,

the labor, the struggle, gratifying:

 

snip prune groom bloom;

 

you lay down rocks for landscaping limits,

watching the movement of

orange-breasted robins laying eggs

high in the hovering pine tree

who fly down, then up, to feed.

 

bushy-tailed rodents gather to consume what

other birds’ feeding has dispersed

on the ground below the hanging feeder,

and run away, bellies satisfied;

 

one tries (unsuccessfully)

to defeat the garden barrier

to consume vines of

squash and melon,

and, foiled, jumps

kamikaze

from the top of the fence

to the next yard’s tree.

 

. . .

 

Three doors down,

sun is rising:

fresh adolescent hearts

break

to the sounds of

digital alarm clock beeps.

 

Sun sets,

and they

joke around like

ruffians from 1979,

fall off skateboards

at high speeds,

laugh off their injuries;

do it again the next day:

 

ride, fall,

break, laugh.

 

. . .

 

Next door, contractors work

into the evening

cleaning pool filters

and preparing decks for sun;

the sound of hammers

to nails

to wood

echoes down the block:

one, two, three,

twenty,

two hundred:

 

("Father, why 

have you 

forsaken 

me?”)

 

But oh,

"Daddy, 

daddy,

you 

bastard, 

I'm through.” 1

 

Removed, you listen,

conflicted by your

hammer’s

own song:

 

one, two, three,

thirty-three,

two hundred.

 

sun becomes hostile, browns

exposed skin and leaftips.

makeshift overhead sunshades

are put in place,

no wind to

fell their fragile frames.

late 90s Billboard hits

blast through cheap speakers,

and through fence;

 

you think,

“unfortunate taste.”

you think,

“why did they complain

about previous neighbors?”

and you think,

“well, tit for tat."

 

. . .

 

Still,

best neighborhood

as far as

neighborhoods go

and it’s yours,

your place in the sun;

your roots,

temporarily pinched,

now grasp through

layers of loam

for down-deep things

 

that will nourish in you

a blooming peace of mind:

 

reaching

east

                              then

 

west,

 

amidst this

popping,

growing,

consuming,

breaking,

laughing,

cleaning,

building,

browning,

blasting,

 

all of which

close up by nightfall and

awaken again

at dawn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy." The Collected Poems. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. N. pag. Print.

 

 

© erika simone 2014