Spring

1. Flowers in Wartime

These daffodils in a blue vase, the ones my daughter gave us,

like old-fashioned telephones, their pretty flower faces

leaning outward in all directions, as though eager to save us

by collecting news: they come out of the night of their blue

vase, the inky light, and spread their curiosity,

their eager concern. How is it in the world of men?

they ask from the world of flowers. Their quick souls may be

pure, because their time’s so brief, but they are here when

we call for them. They seem so centered, their symmetrical

faces with no ups or downs. They incline their heads

with momentary insight. Remember color, they tell us.

Remember delicacy. Remember the fine little things

you may be neglecting, and sniff our petals. That’s air

from another planet. Don’t you like it better?

2. Car Ride, First Day of Spring

Dan and I leave late for synagogue. Why does he go?

Because his girlfriend (who goes to church) approves.

But on the ride over, the gray pelt of the woods showing

the first red tinge of spring, he talks about moving

up to Vermont (where she lives) and I reply

by suggesting he might consider therapy. No,

he says, he wouldn’t want to tell her. No guile,

no secrets. In our synagogue’s loft, a circle of gray heads

exploring the branches of mystical texts, the more minds

the better. Godliness begins in humility. That said,

how does it apply? On the ride back, do I try to find

a way to persuade him, or practice the small courtesy of silence,

and give him a chance to breathe, to think? The air says,

He’ll survive, even if he moves up there.

3. A Visit from the Tree Man

Easy to understand how Chekhov’s characters must feel

when we survey our yard with Pavel, the tree man,

and he shows us the cedar hit by lightning, its bark peeled,

or the crab apple, hollowed out, ready to slam

into the house in a strong north wind. Our strength is failing,

our years are numbered, and now even the trees

are aging and need care. We stand here hailing

our posterity. We’re sorry to leave you these

acres of dead wood and scrambled branches. It’s true

old trees bloom with heartbreaking loveliness. So we

struggle, in our feeble way, as you will. Like you

we wished for a simpler life than this one turned out to be,

and yet feel grateful for the spring, each time it appears,

and plant a few saplings that won’t look good for years.

4. An Errand

Approaching the bank, with its mulched plantings, its instant

strip mall landscaping, I feel once more that I’m reliving

an errand my father must have done for me. I can’t

remember the specifics. But once again I’m giving

money to my son. I’m cheerful with the young teller

when she tells me it will hit his account today.

He’s somewhere up north. His new landlord, a fellow

who works in construction, has asked Dan to pay

first and last month’s rent. I can see the check

in Dan’s crab-like writing in that man’s hand

and it’s a good check. It hasn’t bounced. Indirectly

it’s like a letter from me. I’m sure my dad did this errand

dozens of times. Making deposits. The sum’s

forgotten. Incalculable. He’d sign, and it was done.

5. Travel

“Going on Nan’s painting trip?” her student asks.

She’s staring hard at me, as though she’d like to come along—

while I’m mostly nervous, I tell her. This feeling lasts

till departure: like preparing for death. The wrong

attitude, I know. Terrible to be so self-delighting

I don’t want to leave my reading chair, or the screen

of my computer. And just now the garden is fighting

for my attention, the cherries like veiled brides, the peonies

shooting up near the door, their buds the size of marbles

waiting to unfold—after we’re gone. Aunt Molly

loved them, and now so do I, and I recall the marvel

of their thick old-lady perfume, and think of the folly

of travel. “Packing,” I explain. “We’ll get through it.

Married to Picasso,” I shrug, wondering why I do it.

6. Final Affairs

I leave a note on the kitchen table, not to be opened

unless Something Bad happens. Each departure

reminds us of the big one, I guess. Yet it feels dopey

to be addressing my kids from beyond my grave, sure

they’ll be feeling traumatized, an upheaval in their universe,

as when my mother quietly, predictably passed away

and the still-unexpected call divided my life, irreversibly.

On one side, I had a mother, someone who would say

mother sorts of things to me—since her flesh used to enclose me—

and on the other side the naked silence of an orphan.

“What did you write?” Nan asks. “Oh. About the key

to the safe deposit, and how, if they retrieve our bodies, we’d planned

on Edgell Grove—unless you want that spot in the Jura, above a valley?”

“No,” she nods. “I like to think of people visiting me.”

7. Real Estate

“So if someone gave us—” and here she names an astronomical sum—

for our house, “what would we do?” She wants my opinion?

We’re walking through our garden, but we’ve recently come

from synagogue, part of the faithful minion

studying the law. Sabbatical. Jubilee.

The house isn’t ours, anyway—that was this morning’s teaching—

that neither space, nor time, nor even sovereignty

over the self, are really ours. I guess we’re reaching

the age where we know that, but still our borrowed trees

reach heavenward into the blue sky that’s been loaned to us,

along with our will to be together. Down on her knees

in the flower patch, weeding, this world that’s been shown to us

is enough, she tells me. “Maybe you have a thirst

to wander. But I have lifetimes to spend here first.”