still

for my dad, who's 84 today

when I am still
I can still smell
that beat-up truck
with sticky red seats
and the radio knobs that wouldn’t work
so I could fiddle with them all I wanted

driving home from school...

and when I am still
I can still smell the mockingbird house
we visited…catawpa tree’s shed
its wiggly worms…
sun beating down on a rotten red porch

craning my head, trying to see more between the boards

when I am still
I can still smell
your working skin
underneath green broadcloth…yellow rice
steaming on the stove and cornbread
muffins just like I like…with pea-juice on them

and the taste of the alabama dirt they grew in

when I am still
I will smell
your Sunday smell…and my daughter’s
little voice telling you
how sweet it is and how sweet your are….
in her princess world ~

when I am still
I will smell my daddy’s hugs….my father’s kiss
light on my lips
no matter where I am

growing, going…

still.

lallyhoo, for daddy

there is nobody but nobody here wheedling me
in this blackberry lane growing wildly man-free
with thistles they bristle and bleed fingertip wine
stickly sickly blackberries with nectar divine ~

in here I’m transported back into the garden
the eden of dreams and innocence forgotten
but where there’s berries there’s snakes
grandma mo-mac used to tell me……….
so fear suddenly clouds my thought’s reverie:

I'm re-living the nightmare of old black miss sara;
hunched over just like this, nary a care.
without any warning, the rattler lisped at her face ~
in a death clutch they find them eternally embraced.

miss sara used to make a sweet lallyhoo.
that was Swahili for blackberry stew?
we ate till our smiles trickled tickly sweet
just like bob white quail who’s feast we repeat...till we bloat
after watching their gorge-stained, odd
blue and red throats…….

we miss her and the lallyhoo’s of summer's past time
bitter-sweet thistles and bristles and fingertip wine.
and, so I wish I could take those sneaky bites back?
erase all the sorrow and fear like grandma mo-mac’s.

And now I am hunched here low in this garden
my primeval, bruised, eden far from forgotten
and there’s nobody but nobody here wheedling me
in this blackberry lane growing wildly, finally free.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sylvia Plath's Blackberrying