Wildflowers and Other Poems

By Laura Denny

Wildflowers

The rain came down in sheets
the winter before my husband died.

He was very thin. 
His face a closed book. 
For two years he had suffered
the scalpel, the staples,
the poisonings. The radiation
burns blooming like fire on his tender neck.

In the midst of all that wreckage
like a purple crocus singing herself
through darkness
our daughter was born.

He died in early April.

In May the wild radish took over the fields and roadways
riotously, along with the new green grasses.
It seemed so wrong and unfair.

The next year we couldn’t afford to buy him flowers
so we picked armfuls of the wild radish– 
tiny yellow, pink, white and orange blossoms hanging in mid air. 

I thought it was right
and even better 
than any store-bought flowers.
And they are always there at just the right time.

Peruvian Lilies and Bird Lessons

We were having breakfast.                                             
She was sitting in her little highchair
eating cheerios with her fingers.

These flowers are dead 
I said, half to myself.

It was a large bunch of Peruvian lilies 
in a clear glass vase,
the petals like dried breaths
dropping soundless to the sink.

What is dead? she asked pointedly
looking from the flowers to my face.

Dead is when something
has lived as long as it can
and it can’t live anymore.
Where is Daddy? 

He’s up in heaven
Where is heaven
It’s up in the sky
How do you explain?

After breakfast we took our white canary 
outside to clean his cage.
I went in the house to get newspaper
to line the bottom. 

When I came back outside
she had lifted off the top. 

Where is Whitney? I asked
Up in the ky!
Up in the ky!

She said and threw 
her little arms in the air.

Searching for Sea Glass

The afternoon sun glints
off water, wet sand and stones
like a scattering of stars.

Here is a pile of smooth rounded
earth colored stones, each with its own story.
My fingers itch to rake through them- 
searching, searching for sea glass

The soothing roar of the waves
accompany me as I lie 
on the sun warmed pile of stones
and begin searching:

searching for what has been lost
and broken and dragged 
cross the sea floor.
(We can’t begin to know) 

I find a flat gray stone
and use it to dig
curved furrows of wet
smallish stones, 

the ancient colors
of the earth's beginnings
belonging to the sandy beach
like brothers.

Here is one!
Clear green glass
pock marked by sand and salt
smoothed and shaped by its journey.

I hold it up to the light

Once And Deeply

I was walking through the redwoods
on a foggy morning
when I spied a young man bow

once and deeply
to the burned out hollow
of a giant redwood tree.

The reverence of the act
echoed through the forest 
like a prayer.

I put my hand on the dense
bark of the same tree
wanting it to fold me into itself,

to know how it is to grow
so long and so slow
from light and air,

standing solidly for centuries
minding no time or thought,
simply fulfilling its purpose.

But the palm of my hand was soft
and the thick red  bark of the tree
unyielding and aloof. 

I put my palms together
and bowed instead
once and deeply.

Laura Denny is a poet, piano player and stained glass artist. She has lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains for the past thirty years. She loves to walk in the redwoods while listening to music now that she is retired from teaching.