Somewhere in the week between St Jean Baptiste and Canada Day, it hits me. Every year — summer is here. It’s not the rising temperatures, nor the joyful sound of kids playing all day, signalling the end of the school year. Nor the graduation ceremonies and parties, as celebrated last week in the post by our guest blogger, Kim. No, as I head down the street, it’s the unmistakable shift in the colour of the gardens that confirms summer has arrived.
I love a long, slow spring. And this year, spring outdid itself. The blossom on the trees lingered. The scent of the lilacs was almost overpowering. And even my struggling magnolia managed a couple of blooms
Soft pinks and blues were everywhere.
And then came the switch. The rising temperatures brought out the peonies and the poppies and the other harbingers of summer.
This year, I’ve decided not to wander any further than I can help it. The past few years, I’ve spent too many summers wandering off to meetings or visiting family. Much as those occasions have been lovely, my garden has suffered, and I’ve missed being present to greet all my friends; the flowers.
Perhaps inspired by one of my favourite books, There is a Season by Patrick Lane, a few years ago now, I began writing a sequence of poems based around the flowers in my garden. Except, as a friend pointed out, just as in Lane’s work, it’s not really about the flowers. People walking by on the street often tell me that the peonies, the poppies, the roses remind them of their grandma’s garden, or the garden where they grew up. It’s the same for me, working among the perennials; they speak to me of distant memories of family and friends.
It begins with forsythia, one of the first to flower in the spring. It took me a long time to allow it into my garden, as it reminds me too much of the social housing estates near where I went to school in the middle of the UK. Each yard had a forsythia bush, planted, I’m sure, by the local council, in a bid to beautify the place. For me, it will forever smell of despair and hopelessness, the struggle to flower when everything else is dormant.
...You see, I know her from another country,
couldn’t bring myself to give her space ‘til now,
thought her common, splayed in every yard
along the broken walls of sad brick houses.
Thought her easy, asking little, a bit of sun, a lot of rain,
weathering fag ends, beer cans, cat piss, late night vomit,
maybe even worse. Her flowering loud
against the sullen spring. Flaunting gaudy yellow
blooms before she’d even grown her glossy leaves...
from Forsythia.
And then, the daffodils, which will forever remind me of a colleague, Barbara Orlans. Over many years, she worked tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of animals used for research. But, when I asked her what she intended to do as she retired, she answered, “I’m going home to plant six hundred daffodils”
...I dreamt the powdered scent of bluebell woods.
If they survive, my daffodils should flower again.
I set six hundred in the ground before the snow,
and thought to leave my words, my studies
too, as scattered seeds for contemplating pain...
from: Six Hundred Daffodils
Many other flowers evoke a tinge of sadness, as I associate them with lost loved ones. In the garden, though, as I remember their lives, I feel them near me. For instance, I have a strong memory of being handed a bunch of violets on Mothering Sunday and taking them straight around the back of the church to place them on my newly buried father’s grave.
...Eyes down, I walked straight past my mother
seated in her pew. These are not for you.
Out the church door, round the back
to the freshly-turned mound. Gulping the earth-
musty wetness, geosmin; the smell of spring,
lungful after lungful, until I couldn’t breathe.
I buried those dripping stems deep
so the violets would last a long while,
so you might feel them above you,
so maybe they could root and flower again...
from: Violets
Likewise, lilacs remind me of my parents, and for that reason, I have a love/hate relationship with them. There are many in my garden.
...We’ll gather lilacs in the spring again.
Kathleen Ferrier is singing on the radio, even though she’s dead...
...And walk together down an English lane.
Lilac bushes lining the street are blooming en masse.
No escape from their cheap perfume. Gathered into bunches,
plunked in jars at the office, on the kitchen table.
No escape. They overwhelm me outside and in...
from: Still Life with Lilacs
I admire poets who can simply write poems that are; they don’t need to tell a story, they are simply able to evoke an emotion. I haven’t written a peony poem, maybe because I don’t have a particular peony story, although I remember how my mother loved the deep red ones, and I long to plant a burgundy specimen for her. I doubt very much that I’ll ever write a peony poem — you cannot compete with Mary Oliver’s poem “Peonies”.
...the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding
all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,...
from: Peonies by Mary Oliver
In my garden, the poppies compete for attention with the peonies as spring turns to summer.
Poppy sits on a chair in the garden
all floosy and blousy
scarlet-skirt-over-the-head happy,
the spring sun strengthening.
She sashays through the beds and berms
brash as can be against the pearly peonies...
from Poppy
It’s the scarlet ones that remind me of my son. How in those first days of life outside the womb, he fixated on the ’70s wallpaper of poppies behind our bed.
...Poppies, larger than life
splayed across the bedroom wall.
Scarlet red on black: that seventies vibe.
Swaddled in his blankie, my newborn
fixates on her image.
The salty scent of birth bonds us,
but it’s Poppy’s face that holds his gaze.
Day after day she draws him in with scarlet secrets.
She is his first love. Inseparable mornings...
from: Poppy
It’s full-on summer now. The garden colours are hot with bright red, orange and yellow.
Soon, the daisies will be in full bloom, and you’ll find me on my knees, weeding around them, remembering making daisy chains on the school field in the heat of July.
...I dream the daisies’ innocence.
Scattered stars across the playing fields,
a battleground where I sat alone,
splitting stems to thread flower after flower.
Wilted chains. Peace offerings for maybe friends...
...We hide, afraid of what the future holds.
Rely on fortunes foretold by coming flowers.
He loves me, he loves me not, the wars will end, the wars will not.
I dream a drift of daisies, swaying peacefully in the summer breeze.
from: Daisies
As summer moves on, more friends will appear in the garden. They’ll stay for a while and then leave, promising to visit again next year. Some will migrate to other gardens as I split and share the overgrown clumps, and next year I’ll smile and wave as I wander down the street, recognizing their faces.
At Wandering Wakefield, we’d love to hear your flower stories too…send us an email, and think about sharing your story as a guest blogger.
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