Am Canning Pickles as I Write
Am canning pickles as I write
means I love you.
A card from my grandmother
in graceful cursive, slanting to the right
offers details of the day. Family news:
The corn is tall, tomatoes abundant,
zinnias especially beautiful. The county fair
starting soon, cousins showing hogs.
Am baking cookies as I write
means I love you.
A note from my grandmother
on a page torn from a random pad,
in graceful cursive, slanting to the right,
a schoolteacher’s handwriting
Sugar cookies – Joe’s favorite
goes without saying – News of aunts
and uncles, preparations for harvest
combines in the field, a new priest in the parish.
Am putting up jelly as I write,
means I love you.
A letter from my grandmother
on the thinnest paper, crinkling slightly
in my hands, lines of graceful cursive
slanting to the right, raspberry today.
Looks like rain, crocheting some cushions.
News of the neighborhood: A wedding,
a baby, a funeral.
The page is filled with hieroglyphics.
The words do not really matter.
There will never be an outpouring
of emotion, or deep secrets
or probing inquiries. She is mailing
a message in a bottle. The smell
of her kitchen floats from the fold.
She is sending a snapshot
of her short stout form in front of the stove,
her small sturdy hands in constant motion.
I am canning, I am stirring,
I am baking, I am writing
means I love you.
Cabbage is a form of communication
Our neighbor down the road
has moved to assisted living,
dementia worsening day by day.
Another in the hospital, foot
blackened, infection threatening
to spread poison through her leg
and up into her heart, another gone
so soon after his wife of seventy
years passed. A steady stream
of traffic weaves in and out
of the cemetery on Highway 69.
But it is July and the heat rises
like steam from a boiling kettle,
and the garden keeps growing.
“I have a cabbage if you need one,”
says another neighbor, a septuagenarian
with curly white hair, who resembles
a bantamweight boxer with an elfin grin,
whose wife hangs on the precipice
between life and death in a nearby hospital.
I drive down the gravel road and take him dinner,
a tupperware of chicken wings and french fries,
because he won’t eat anything fancy.
Standing in the driveway, we both cry
just the tiniest bit, unusual for us,
but still he insists on taking me to the garden
to harvest the cabbage, a huge round orb,
the palest shade of green, alabaster
mixed with laurel, a creamy basketball,
leaves wrapping around it like hands in prayer.
“I don’t even like cabbage,” he tells me.
“I just like having a garden.” He loads
me up, cabbage and zucchini spilling
out of my arms, everything smelling
so musky and alive.
“Come back tomorrow for beans,”
he says. After all, it’s July,
and the garden keeps growing.
Suzanna C. de Baca is a native Iowan, proud Latina, entrepreneur, author and artist. A member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, her poetry has been published widely in literary magazines and journals. She is the recipient of the Derick Burleson Poetry Award and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Am canning pickles as I write
means I love you.
A card from my grandmother
in graceful cursive, slanting to the right
offers details of the day. Family news:
The corn is tall, tomatoes abundant,
zinnias especially beautiful. The county fair
starting soon, cousins showing hogs.
Am baking cookies as I write
means I love you.
A note from my grandmother
on a page torn from a random pad,
in graceful cursive, slanting to the right,
a schoolteacher’s handwriting
Sugar cookies – Joe’s favorite
goes without saying – News of aunts
and uncles, preparations for harvest
combines in the field, a new priest in the parish.
Am putting up jelly as I write,
means I love you.
A letter from my grandmother
on the thinnest paper, crinkling slightly
in my hands, lines of graceful cursive
slanting to the right, raspberry today.
Looks like rain, crocheting some cushions.
News of the neighborhood: A wedding,
a baby, a funeral.
The page is filled with hieroglyphics.
The words do not really matter.
There will never be an outpouring
of emotion, or deep secrets
or probing inquiries. She is mailing
a message in a bottle. The smell
of her kitchen floats from the fold.
She is sending a snapshot
of her short stout form in front of the stove,
her small sturdy hands in constant motion.
I am canning, I am stirring,
I am baking, I am writing
means I love you.
Cabbage is a form of communication
Our neighbor down the road
has moved to assisted living,
dementia worsening day by day.
Another in the hospital, foot
blackened, infection threatening
to spread poison through her leg
and up into her heart, another gone
so soon after his wife of seventy
years passed. A steady stream
of traffic weaves in and out
of the cemetery on Highway 69.
But it is July and the heat rises
like steam from a boiling kettle,
and the garden keeps growing.
“I have a cabbage if you need one,”
says another neighbor, a septuagenarian
with curly white hair, who resembles
a bantamweight boxer with an elfin grin,
whose wife hangs on the precipice
between life and death in a nearby hospital.
I drive down the gravel road and take him dinner,
a tupperware of chicken wings and french fries,
because he won’t eat anything fancy.
Standing in the driveway, we both cry
just the tiniest bit, unusual for us,
but still he insists on taking me to the garden
to harvest the cabbage, a huge round orb,
the palest shade of green, alabaster
mixed with laurel, a creamy basketball,
leaves wrapping around it like hands in prayer.
“I don’t even like cabbage,” he tells me.
“I just like having a garden.” He loads
me up, cabbage and zucchini spilling
out of my arms, everything smelling
so musky and alive.
“Come back tomorrow for beans,”
he says. After all, it’s July,
and the garden keeps growing.
Suzanna C. de Baca is a native Iowan, proud Latina, entrepreneur, author and artist. A member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, her poetry has been published widely in literary magazines and journals. She is the recipient of the Derick Burleson Poetry Award and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
