Dedicated to my beloved husband, Floyd Russell Taylor
Once again, upon a weekend time, we shook off the city.
As always, by Friday, it felt like a fur drenched in wet.
At first, we motored through the fog, then, across the Golden Gate
And into the sun, the fun of Sonoma.
Our rental car conveyed our escape
To the haven-heaven of the Steng’s discrete stead.
Arriving by rounding a bend, there were beehives
Just inside the property fence.
If not a first defense,
Not exactly an invitation, either.
Behind them were the horses at peace in a pasture.
One intuited: Do not disturb.
We veered to the right and idled the car
Right in front of a Victorian “Lady,” painted in yellow and orange.
The house was as perfect as a gingerbread cookie.
It too seemed to have its defenses,
At least in the Spring.
Rings and rows of bearded iris,
In all the colors that an iris genetics could endow,
Rustled in the wind,
Dominating their dominion, which encircled the house.
Well, after all, despite their beards, diminutive flowers,
They could only hold us hostage
Through the dazzle of their emanating beauty.
Luckily, this was August,
Visitors were spared the siren sight of them.
Mary and John Steng were not at home. Of course not.
We were just being polite by ringing the bell.
John was always off riding a tractor for some Park and Rec.
And Mary? Forever out yonder in the gardens,
One for vegetarians, the other for ornamentalists.
We parked on the grass behind the house,
Two weekend friends about to roost.
Russ was always the man with a list,
Here, looking for a veritable cornucopia
Of Mary’s vegetable abundance.
A poet, I wanted to hide in the wild thicket
Of a yard which Mary named her “secret day dream.”
We separated.
Mary went with Russ, to show him her laden tables,
Her myriad baskets and bushels.
She listened as he beckoned his selections.
Then too, she picked his requests from the trees,
Or dug them up from below.
He particularly loved what was fresh.
Meanwhile, I wandered the mazy paths
Of a garden allowed to stretch itself up,
Spread itself wide.
The trees were dropping fruit.
The bushes were all densely poxed
With a rash of miniature blooms.
The ground flowers rioted over here, over there,
Rioted everywhere
But the paths encrusted with clover and weed.
With every visit, as I wandered,
A poet too shy or too wise,
I allowed myself to pluck out
Only three of the intuitions
That protruded from the plethora
Crowding all around me.
Today, upon seeing the trumpet lily
Hanging from a trellis,
I realized how splendid was my joy in this place.
Then, I voiced a clarion note,
Just one, as if it were a pitch
That was the prelude to a song.
From the dot of a blossom on a bush,
I sensed it’s white was like a pilot light,
A seed. Spiritually, that light proceeded to multiply
Until it coruscated
The length, the breadth of my soul
With an Elation.
Finally, the falling stalks of something tattered, red,
Seemed to beg for my embrace.
As I knelt to them,
Suddenly, in this world, this universe,
I sensed what my role might conceivably be.
I sensed how I could help…by offering solace.
His purchases completed,
Russ sent Mary into the flowers
To find and retrieve his Steves.
Mary knew how to lure me back out.
She knew I would be surreptitious,
Watching her
Choose and cut her flowers into a bouquet,
Customized just for me.
She knew I would follow her back to my Russ,
A man waiting patiently, as always.
Sunday, the next day, inspired,
Russ cooked his treasure of vegetables
Into a feast for the two of us.
The world locked out of our apartment,
The phone off its hook,
We sat across from each other at table.
We gave each other a smile, just a single, signaling smile,
But one so deeply felt, so authentic,
Surely, God Himself took note (or, in absentia, His angel of a secretary).
I said a kind of Grace:
“May we travel to Mary’s again, and again, and again.
After, Russ, you cook.
For a day we need solace, I’ll start writing a poem
About us in a garden together.
Later, I’ll pass it on to whoever, pass it on forever.”
Spontaneously, we both rose,
And bending over the table toward each other,
We sealed my prayer with a kiss.
Steven Golden
November 26-December 1 2023
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