Catalpa

Paul Mariani

In the patch-bright shadow of the flowering catalpa（梓树）, 

 limbs loam-streaked from struggling with the narrow 

 plank & cranky barrow I kept emptying into the maws 

 of cedar（雪松） boxes Mark was building, and stunned too 

 with the heat & the black flies' stinging, I found myself 

 once more shouting, this time at John, my youngest, 

 over the all-important inconsequential, when Mark, 

 leaning on his ten-pound sledge, 

 decreed there'd be no fighting in his garden. 

His quip caught me by surprise. No fighting 

 in the garden. Off limits to all squabbles（争吵）. 

 Fair enough. I tossed the keys to John & told him 

 to be careful, then turned to work again with Mark, 

 who knew more than me about how to build a garden 

 & could use the old man for his gofer. 

I was willing. After all, we both wanted 

 garden boxes for his mother: boxes spilling over 

 with all those flowers a city boy can taste & see 

 even if he doesn't have their names by heart: 

 sunburst day's eye, blue bachelor button, 

 foxglove, pansy, pinkpurple phlox, petunia, 

 gladioli, iris, closebudded copper mums and roses, 

 stippled lilies like the yellow-orange day & magenta tiger, 

 indian brush aflame with brilliant tongues of fire, 

 gentle lamb's ear & the giant blowfish spiny purple thistle, 

 as well as all those whose names I never knew 

 or have forgotten (though somewhere they are 

 written down & somewhere they exist). 

Sure, it was all bare black soil now. Mere promise only. 

 On the gentle rolling slope old moss & thorny hedges, 

 then the clearing of the field with one tenth hope & nine tenths 

 back-break toil. But she'd wanted flowers & we would 

 give her flowers, in handfuls flowers, from her husband 

 & her sons as in the mind's deep eye one could see 

 they would make her smile & smile & smile yet again. 

At least in time. But here was Adam with a touch 

 of tendonitis（肌腱炎） flaring in his elbow from the lifting, 

 & a son about his business in the unformed garden 

 dreaming flowers, dreaming green thoughts 

 in a graygreen place he might recover with his father. 

 He seemed to understand that if the old man 

 would only stand still long enough to listen 

 there might be flowers for his mother everywhere.