[The following is an alternate version of the previously posted poem "Dying in California".]
The blossoms begin in February:
Almond turns white as brides,
And Quince blots red against the wood,
Violets mock the cold earth
While hyacinth cannot hold back.
You rest uneasy on your bed:
I think how we trudged across
The lower garden patch,
Past the pear trees and wild
Persimmon's despised fruit,
Entering the woods noisily
And laughing at the snake's escape.
Lifting up the carpet of needles
We dig deep in the woods' floor
Filling pail after pail of sweet decay
To feed your treasured flowerbeds,
Your Mr. Lincoln, dear Helen Traubel,
Queen Elizabeth, Razzle-Dazzle and Peace,
The children of your retirement years.
Those happy times of planting
Bring you back to life but what I can't
Forget is how you felt to wake one day
To find your brother's footsteps in new
Snow and how you always wished you'd
Cooked his breakfast or waked
At least in time to say goodbye.
Now you would shout for quiet
If only you could speak again
In this wild western place
This noisy room where you will leave
The deaf, the blind, those without mind,
A roommate who chooses to speak Portuguese.
[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]
Although undated, I think this must surely refer to the passing of Emily McKinnon, who spent her last days in Pilgrim's Haven, a nursing home not far from where we lived in Stanford. Knowing the circumstances so intimately, I find myself wholly unable to separate the general and universal from the specifics.
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