Water Flows Into A Garden Poem by Denis Mair

At Kent State the flea-market-cruising roommate girls
Discovered the retro charm of 1930's jackets
Square-shouldered seriousness dissolved in giggles
Adornment rituals for young female bonding
They practiced anthropology outside of class
Gypsy skirts and calico were their true colors
In the brick cafeteria, Heidi made them giddy
Shaping broccoli forests around lakes of gravy

The currents of their young lives were far from sluggish
Rushing over the state-run rocks of a sedimentary college
They threw up white spray into the sun
And sometimes the torrent carried them to Water Street
But it carried them further
It gave Heidi the passion to dig for Indian relics
To follow the Ghost Dance into college and museum
And be professional, helping frowsy-haired collegians
And marry the same man and house for over 20 years

Once at Kent State, she played a little fascination game with plants on window sills
Now the stream of water has flowed down the years
To a lush comical garden, floral foolishness nodding in the sun
She runs among the drooping, boobish blooms, in a frenzy
Weeding, rooting, squirting, like an East European immigrant
Potting and pruning, rampaging among the biomass
She has trained herself to attack every flaw in the whole dirt-plant cycle
Her arms raised up and out at the elbows
She is over them, orchestrating their advent in timed explosion
Floral firework progression
Next to a comical English garden gate
Framing the contented domestic sunny backyard
Perfect inspection ground for nodding old man glances
All this the water has brought her
The channel running in accustomed course
For a long time it will continue, far from destination
Little fear of rapids or wide confused seasonal floods

Once up near the stream-head in the chime of laughing water
We thought we heard elves singing in the forest
Now in middle reaches, we flow steadily past farmland
Twilight will gradually steal up
Plants on the bank exude the smell of sap
Deep pellucid Maxfield Parrish sky
Stars show in empty, glimmery reaches
This will be the time when river reaches estuary, the delta country
No clear-cut bank on which to stand and view the water
But in the main channel, the broad back of the river
Flows at the same time into ocean and night