Campsis radicans

That house still haunts me;
the absences I feel are extreme.
Brad has kept the trumpet vines,
electric and intense like himself.
He pulled the irises that were once
lining the paths and taking breath
away from visitors as they passed.
The enormous black-purple blooms,
now towering only in our memory.
He inherited too much and not enough,
spending time and money adjusting,
spreading out and stamping his energy
onto the places that had been our center.
He’s added alcohol to the room where
my grandma’s last moments began,
highlighting the permanence of it all.
Where there was once an annual
display of daisies and cleomes,
a chainlink box sits, overgrown with
those intense trumpet vines.
The garden is all wild and unkempt,
like he’s trying to preserve something
that cannot be contained or suppressed.
Life spills out from our dark spots.
The house was full of undue pressures,
now settled into a gritty beauty.
The roots will continue to grow,
the trumpet vines will spread,
and one day my nephew’s children
will wipe tears from their eyes when
they visit a house that meant so much.
And they’ll talk about the intensity
and how much they’d give to have it back.

Notes

Written 20 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Campsis radicans” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)