Of Petals and Parkinson’s…

I had a request recently in the comments section, asking whether I would post some of my poetry. I haven’t done that before for a variety of reasons, not least of which is I’m a pretty shy person, and poetry is by its nature, full of exposure. Of course, so is a blog, despite all the selectivity you can impose on it. So, here goes…

First, a bit of explanation because this poem is not easily accessible…

Seasons are a funny thing here at the ranch. It always rains during August (what is euphemistically called The Monsoon) and usually during the winter, in December and January. It almost always snows, at least once like this:

Although not this year. We had one dusting, no real snow at all. Two winters ago, it was so wet that it caused torrential floods and scoured out our canyon. Our swimming hole is usually about 18 feet deep and looks like this:

After the rains of December-January 2005, so much sand and silt was moved through the canyon and deposited on the bottom of the swimming hole, you could walk across it only up to your ankles. It suddenly looked like this–you can compare the rocks in the two photos to see that it’s the same place:

That same winter and early spring of 2005, we had a fantastic wildflower season. I didn’t even realize how good at the time, but I’m thankful I ran around–nearly every day–taking photographs of anything that bloomed, as it probably won’t be that good for another 50 years. So, I assume I saw flowers that only bloom once every few decades. (This year, there are NO wildflowers–not a one.) That year, I researched them obsessively, trying to memorize their shapes and colors and names. It was like learning a new language:

Wooly Paintbrush

Maiden Blue-Eyed Mary

Bluestem Pricklepoppy

Blue Dicks

Desert Mariposa

Common Bedstraw

Miniature Woolstar

Miner’s Lettuce

Blue Toadflax

Bastard Toadflax

Horehound (which was used in making candy, to thicken it)

Barestem Larkspur

I could go on and on–there are more than eighty distinct wildflowers that I documented growing on the ranch that year. Interestingly enough, they grow at certain spots and not others, apparently according to altitude and shade factors, and also they bloom at different times, so there is a sort of staggered season, starting in late January and disappearing completely (except for the various kinds of penstemon, the poppies, and the nightshade) by the end of May when the heat really ratchets up.

The other part of this poem is the part about my father, who came to visit us at the ranch in Christmas of 2004, just before the incredible wildflower season began. We didn’t know it at the time he was visiting, but he has Parkinson’s Disease. His mobility was in decline when he was here, but we weren’t yet sure why. He was diagnosed a couple of months later, and he has an atypical sort of Parkinson’s, in which he doesn’t “shake” but rather has limited control over his legs and has fairly significant loss of cognitive function. It’s somewhat like Alzheimer’s, actually, although he still knows who everyone is. He just can’t remember what he just said to you.

I wanted to show my parents some of the trails at the ranch, and so we drove them to the top of the hill and gave my father hiking poles (like ski poles, without spikes) so he could have some leverage. But it was very hard going for him. The trails are quite clear by hiking standards, but it’s not like walking on a smooth surface, and it was too much for him. Of course, he wanted to please me, so he didn’t complain and kept on going, even when I think he was pretty nervous. I probably insisted on him seeing more than he was really able to because I didn’t want to believe at the time that he was in such decline.

And, so, the poem was really born out of the attempt to merge these two things: the decline and loss of a parent with the fullness and rejuvenation of this incredible springtime we had that year. It’s trying to come to terms with the paradox that seemed to point to–that my father could no longer walk over the very ground that was about to be full of blooming life in a few weeks time–and also his need to please me even in the face of my inability to accept what was happening to him.

The poem was published in the fall of that year, but I’ve never shown it to my father. My mother has read it. By the way, please feel free to comment or ask questions about the poem if you want to…poets like feedback when they put their stuff out there….

Later, larkspur

i.

In the sweet midwinter of these slopes,
when seeds still clasp blue buds like lockets,
my father leans on ski poles without skiis
or snow underfoot. His legs resemble
numchucks unlaced, two stout scraps of wood,
their threat dispersed. Stabbing the earth,
he pulls first one leg, then the other, in line
with some interior fold, the body’s diameter,
a paper doll’s measure of even distance
from point to point. Gone is his best guess
of who he was, top to bottom. Later,
larkspur, nettle, paintbrush, wool stars
will poke the warming air. Fleabane bloom
like mops. Each day will coax a new color
from the empty earthwells he drags over now.
Whatever fear he sees in stone and runnel
surrenders to a lie: the lie he traffics in
to please his daughter, the lie of him I harbor,
a girl storing flowers in the pleats of her dress.
When she runs to his outstretched arms,
he gathers her up like stems.

ii.

In a good year of flowers, history stubbles
the sides of rock: miner’s lettuce, bedstraw, soapberry
packs the native poultice, the hands of pioneers,

who come from Wheeling and Omaha
to stuff their mattresses with weeds. Settlers name
the wild plants for what they do, like engineers

name gears or witches, brews. Like all words,
the names ferment: traveler’s joy, candlewick,
wait-a-minute bush. We lose their sense. What’s left

ripples across the stream of reason. Washed by time,
my father travels the route I ask, gamely
picking his way toward where wildflowers will be.

Prophecy divides him out of the world, like conceived
cells. Even in a good year, horehound no longer comes
to candy, nor flax to cloth.