North Side of the House

Moss clings to the dripping tap, and rot
insinuates itself along the sill,
the cellar window slumps
to pulp and fiber, the glass's eyes gone
cloudy with the past. In shadow that refuses
to concede to light, wildflowers rise
each spring to greet the homing geese
as she had done some forty years
before. And halfway through her day
she must have known this wildness
that I feel now, as she knelt, bent
spoon in hand, the forest seeping
dampness, cold against her roughened knees,
to scoop reclusive seedlings
and carry them in mopping pails
to the north side of the house.

Dutchman's pants, in innocence as white as first tooth
lost and saved, wave on their slender lines like flags
at Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet. 1

Jack, the fundamental preacher, wags his disapproving head
beneath the flourished sounding-hood, his pulpit
high upon its safe and solitary stalk.

Spring Beauty lifts her vacant lovely face
with starry gaze and thin-lipped smile,
accepting this, her banished fate, with grace.

Separation sighs through Trillium leaves,
pulsing purple blooms like that which flames
behind clenched lids.

The secret pain of Blood Root pushes
deep beneath the dirt, bleeding
fingers reach for what they cannot hold.

Like them, I bloom in shade
where I do not belong—sad soil
clings to my roots as bits of cradlesong
stick in the ear across the silenced
years, and sings with tears that choke
me back to where neglected nettles
bite and sting.

1. Swellendam and Graaff-Reneit were centers of the South African frontier independence movement in the 1790s.