Gale's Garden

fickle scenes stream to recall hinted grey days and the shovel blade’s scrape, slap into earthy layers beneath crabgrass

i  now follow the intermittent shine of spider web twine to a more southern bred aloe, refuting sunbeams in my old woman reality to remember that misty day when

my heart twisted and broken indoors, took to tear at the earth outside your window

monochrome world’s indifference made you wash dishes in the dark as I dug up lawn in the rain

the only color was your hair, willing life by its hopeful amber hues, but your womb would not consent

mine own, finally silent after an onslaught of drugs and surgeries,  two children enough  {white girl sigh} safely inside watching tv

your desolation left the sink full to turn away from this connection with me, intolerable even through windowed glass, as in solace you grieved, your husband working far away

i remained. busied by clearing sections of sod, back burning, and the whole world’s tear drops of rain for your lost child to dampen my clothes  

days ended and began with bared soil, thankful to be covered in layers of mulch,  grassy gowns having been torn away, dampened newspapers  sphagnum moss  mushroom compost  cow manure grass clippings and autumn's painted leaves a new decor

you didn't flee from your kitchen window now   i didn't  glance your way

flea market finds and field rocks bordered the polygon, a quadrilateral, with a happenstance of bricks broken and butting edges to snows’ first crime

the ground froze, i shoveled your walk in morning darkness, we passed each other as neighbors do in silence   until spring

pawing at the earth like a centaur, i sunk over one hundred and fifty bulbs

it was meant to be stunning, an antique art nouveau  costume jewelry bouquet, but the pieces I dug and placed  were pre-adolescent to bloom as gems not yet

beckoning birds with baths and feeders, tea cups and saucers suspended above the tiger lilies’ fan, i built

then I waited  waited and watered  placed bird seed  and it happened  it filled your view, you came out to speak with me 

I could never remove the loss from your heart, but I could fill your eyes with beauty  with the softness of nature  with the hope of flowers for new life

the garden grew as did your rounding belly. you carried a child as the seasons changed

red haired, hopeful as mom, she was born and as she grew.  i planted a Hogwarts garden for this little one and mine as well, complete with chocolate frogs and contorted hazelnut, warlock twisted finger branches, wilting leaved tree

when we parted, each selling our homes, you told me how you would miss the gardens, the spring blooms, but confided, almost thinking out loud, how you couldn't understand why such beauty I hid from my own eyes, far from any window from which my haunted home would breathe

i smiled, and bent to pull a weed   we hugged and shared well wishes  i had no words   only flowers

it was for you

                                  a garden, your garden~

                                                                healing petals to touch   reflect life’s beauty

                     to impress the strength of your name: one who never, never  gives up

                          






 © ruth follmann

Wabi-sabi & Brooke Shields' Eyebrows

Bicentennial middle school celebrated 200 years of our country’s birth and my green light to enter into the chasm of feminine preening. My lips were cherry gloss red, my skin stayed white, and my eye shadow was metallic aqua blue.

One weeknight evening, I found the tweezers. Having watched my brothers’ eyebrows fantasmically transform, I decided to leave the Boys 2 Men Club of the supraorbital arch. Time to pluck that hair!

Keep in mind that 1976 stood as a proud antecedent of the renowned Brooke Shields' Eyebrows. Young Shields hit the screen in the 1978 Lois Malle’s film, Pretty Baby, and mixed it all up in the 80's.


By then, I had already pruned my eyebrows. As any gardener knows, pruning delegates itself to be an ongoing chore. My tweezers didn't mind. Stop the horror! I do not presently ‘draw’ my brows in. Nor are they tattooed; but, I did create a left brow shape described by a blurting classmate as a constant “state of surprise”.

As forewarned by those many wives’ tales: arthritis sets in from skirted bare winter legs, horses spook when you have your period (still don’t believe that one), & eyebrow hair does not respond well to growing back in; I acquiesce. “That’s never going to grow back you know!” loudspeakered my degrading school chum. “Check it out! Ruth always looks like she’s surprised!”

Feigning fate, I have been.

I am surprised that women still earn less than men.

I am surprised most people do not know we are all racist.

I am giddy when young people go through, survive, and teach us oldsters what we should have learned on our own long ago.

I am surprised at how much work marriage requires, every day.

I am slapped with disbelief that the world is tolerating an election for a mass murderer in Syria.

I am seedling peeking through soil, fragile heart of foil, surprised calls still matter on Mother’s Day.

I am surprised by the wit and sharp reprimand to stay strong from my own dearest Mom.

Lastly, I am surprised, after what seems to be eons as a dedicated health care worker, that I forgot the rule of entropy, the constant of age, & Wabi-sabi.

I have decided that the 'vase' has fallen. It is somewhere in the vicinity of my knees now. Although the vase has not yet hit the floor, I can unreservedly say it will. I have been struggling to catch it midair with the slippery hands of life and circumstance. I have been casting curses that if the floor I had been standing on was in another state, the vase would not have fallen. Silly. Outrageous. Vases fall. Life happens. Health deteriorates. Age onsets. Accept it with grace. Once the pieces have hit the floor, safely access the situation, gather the proper tools and or assistance needed to 'pick up the pieces', regroup. Find the best kind of glue.

So I am breathing easier, knowing what I should have realized all along: I cannot control everything.

Of this obvious fact: known, held, crumpled and thrown away, retrieved, smoothed and reviewed, I am surprised ~

that it is so  very hard  ‘to do’.

 © ruth follmann