Abandoned Garden

Abandoned Garden

Lying on the long side of time 

a partially buried Meissen vase 

Crackled like paper crunched in the fist of an accident

Its mouth growing sweet peas and pansies

A pioneer woman's attempt to civilize an untamed land

As though she were out gathering a bouquet

for a quilting bee in her homestead house

when some tragedy befell her 

The house now as much a ghost as she

Yet she lingers in these immigrant flowers

that survive encroachment from native clover 

blue flax, sage and morning glory

Butterflies that pollinate from one to the other

arbitrating the struggle 

Like the diplomacy of a woman

caught between a hardcore German husband

and the America around them

Between their children and the razor strop

that hung on a toolshed door

She lives in the flames of poppies she planted

that have burned through a century

of hailed-out crops, drought and grasshoppers

Today the prairie breeze breathes the same scent 

as her heirloom handkerchiefs

The sweet violet toilet water sacheted in drawers

and splashed on after a well water wash

She lives in the pressed purple yellow 

pansies that look out from 

a grandmother's diary and recipe books 

Butterflies, as they take flight 

in the draft of turning pages