Thursday, August 17, 2023

Angie Estes

 

La fleur que j’aime:

They must have been Molly Bloom’s

favorites since she remembered

how the sun shines for you he said

the day we were lying among the

rhododendrons on Howth head yes,

and Virginia Woolf wrote

in late winter/early spring in

one of her last diary entries

L is doing the rhododendrons. Maybe Leonard

was planning a trip to Rhodes, island

of Rhodos, roses, or just removing

compost, bark or straw mulch,

some burlap, snow or wind screen

from around the shrubs. Perhaps he stood

out in the garden, secateurs

in hand, deadheading the most

far-reaching blossom inflorescences,

their frayed ends dangling as if

they had exploded

like firecrackers. From a distance,

it must have looked like a Greek

dance, one leg crossed over

the other, someone holding a bouquet

of air at the end of each outstretched

arm, praising what comes back

each spring, or doesn’t.

 

 

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