Heal-all
It’s an unspeakable world, so I stay silent—
my life, I suppose, an offense.
It’s an unspeakable world. The heal-all
is mute but in her presence the hum of bees
up close, serves as song.
The heal-all can be used.
Clog up your wounds with her.
Make of her a rinse for bloody gums.
Make an oxymel for your salad, so the leaves
you plucked from dirt can build you up.
Even so, the silver spoons consume the city,
while others earn every dime, conserve,
trim every excess.
Even so, there are nights
the body sweats with despair.
My luxury ~ the weeds and the weeks under foot.
My luxury ~ kindness, that one smile in the market
from the woman who sells feverfew in mason jars.
She too understands the heal-all’s square stem,
firm in the hand, its sorrowful purple hue.
To draw out the medicine, only a pan in a pan,
water, oil, leaves, mild heat.
Then it all turns a faint green,
ready to sooth like silence, like whispering
to the pond’s edge until there is a calmness
and respite in the warm release of July.
It’s been a weary life, devoid of glamour,
and yet the zinnias win me with crowns of gold.
It's just a small life, a mother’s life,
and that too is winding down. One must
bruise the lemon balm to sharpen delight.
The young mothers on the hill make fairy-mouths
from snapdragons. Joy’s there for the taking.
I won’t shy away from happiness, the sunflowers,
bee balm, cosmos all crowded in a make-shift vase,
the Japanese cucumbers long and prickly
on the counter, the raised bed full
of banana peppers and habaneros.
This is the world I move in, touch, call home.
I circle here, in moments of pleasure and doing
that take my mind and dampen it
as the pine and the crape myrtle hover,
and the bright birdhouse flag breeds cheer,
while the dove fledglings tuck as one into the grass.
When the parents arrive in a flutter, they jab their beaks
deep into the throats of their young, and I watch
like a tree and later fill the cobalt platter with fresh water.
TARA BRAY is the author of Small Mothers of Fright (LSU Press, 2015) and Mistaken For Song (Persea Books, 2009). Read more.