An e-mail opened to an old magnolia tree, stirred memories
muddy hands
dark soil
green knees
blue jeans.
It grew, branched wide.
We moved; I never saw it flower.
The screen showed it proud, shrouded in pink.
Not like the dogwood here, planted for you, in my west coast yard.
A reminder of the tree in our first home, the long-gone friend who dug its hole.
It folds bits of then into now, bends time.
I observed its slow growth, gangly youth.
Last spring a flower burst, its first.
It took shape this year, bark white, branches long.
You watched it from our porch, not long ago,
saw leaves grow, fall.
I see our divide in its textured bark.
You sit behind closed doors in a home nearby.
A sign states “no entry, no exceptions”.
I put on a mask, gloves, go to you;
stand outside your window.
We talk, separated by glass,
rooted in shared memories.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Bloch-Welliver lives in Northern California. She is a multidisciplinary artist who writes poetry and makes sculpture. She exhibits internationally. Susan began using poetry in her art in 2019, exhibiting fused glass with alliterative phrases at Westhaven Center for the Arts. She received a Victor Jacoby grant for poetic sculpture from the Humboldt Area Foundation in Dec 2019. She is the daughter of a poet and nurse, sister of a bookseller and wife to a kind-hearted builder.