SOMETIMES, WILD PLUM TREES WEEP​   

​

               After Kelly O'Dell's 2017 art installation Remain(S)*

​

Gone.

My father’s first grocery shop, where once

he’d stacked bushels of sweet summer corn,

rows of watermelon, and peaches by the peck

outside the shop door, with the bell that rang

crisp and pure as a prayer

 

Gone.

My childhood home, where once

blue hydrangeas and white honeysuckle

spread their roots beneath our front porch,

and dripping swimsuits hung along the rail.

Spiders knit lacey webs that lasted all summer.

 

Gone.

My elementary school building, where once

Peg Leg Bates tap danced across our creaky

gym floor, a wooden stump strapped to his thigh.

And when he jumped!—arms and legs straight out,

he looked like a starfish shooting for the moon.

 

Yet.

There, still standing in a distant corner

of the schoolyard, the small copse of wild plum trees

where once, I’d slipped between the trunks, into their

shady circle to steer a pirate ship, fly a rocket

or let down my hair from the castle turret, calling

to my friends, "Let's pretend...."

 

Now.

Overgrown, my once secret space gives me no entrance.

Along the tree trunks, glinting in the August sunlight,

amber tear drops cascade down the bark. I study

the bits of black, flecks of brown inside each drop, looking

for shapes of my past—a bell, a web, a starfish—

for something of me that remains. ​

 

* Museum of Northwest Art, 2017