Croton

By Charlotte Palmer

You caught my attention as a curly-leafed showy shrub
in the yard of an old friend's mother.

She gifted me with you as a way to sustain you
since there was no room for this off-shoot
of the thriving parent bush she had long cultivated.

I brought you home wrapped in damp newspaper
determined to give you a location where you, too,
could thrive.

I chose the spot between the palms and the cherry laurels

near the drive.

For two years or more I watched you increase to a height of two feet

-just one spindly stem.

One stem with over-sized, glossy, splotchy, twisted leaves

much too big for your stem.

After rains your leaves cascaded out from that stem

like spouts from a fountain.

When it was dry, your leaves drooped-

listless from lack of nourishment.

Your sad state called me to drag out the garden hose

and saturate your roots

before shuffling off to my own welcome bed

after a long day of "busyness".

Your variable hydration kept me vigilant

as I responded to your needs for refreshment.

It was a tenuous contract of extended care

that somehow ameliorated my paucity of presence

during my parents' waning years.

You persisted, maintained in a "just hanging on" limbo.

Then the cable layers moved in along the roadside gutters,

digging their trenches, burying the lines that

connect our home communications to the world

through phone, television and computer.

Much to my relief,

you did not run afoul of their backhoe,

but when the dust had cleared,

your leaves were lost-

only your crooked stem remained.

I was crushed.

Your little life had meant a lot to me-

and now it appeared that you had been overwhelmed after all

by dust, vibrating machines and smoke.

Sad defeat and dejection were all that remained

as my response to your naked stem.

My ministrations and offerings to you had not been enough.

Good Friday's mood matched my feelings about your demise.

"It's not over until the fat lady sings" though!

My son suggested that perhaps your roots were still alive.

"Yeah, right!" I thought. "Fat chance."

My eyes no longer searched out your stem

as I pulled out of the driveway in the dim dawn.

I was resigned.  You were gone.

A dusky evening walk with my son proved this thought wrong!

Last night a soaking rain had fallen

so now on pausing by your spindly stick,

I spotted one...two...three green buds

barely protruding from your black stem!

Doubt could now be denied,

Sap was rising as your leaves are little shiny spears coming forth

surely, steadily increasing in size, defining their shape.

You are my regenerated springtime love

still present in my life.

You've given me another chance to admire and maintain you.

A small bit of grace in such a busy, transforming world.

The Journey

~from Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!" each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life that you could save.

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