Backyard Note

Backyard Note

The vines of my fence have come and gone

But I worry this time they might be gone. For good.

Through years of shivering winters

And hazy summers

And shaking months of construction next door

The vines of twirling ivy have always crept back into our lives, the tendrils extending their grasp, as if my family was the sun.

My mom used to say my sister and I were fairies

Born from a walnut shell not from her

How could we not believe

When the ivy grew just so

Running its vines across our young minds.

I dreamed it was like another aunt of mine

That mother nature was real and was plastered all over my fence

I felt bad when my dad would ask me to take clippings for our centerpieces

I whispered sorry with each snip

Promising only to take the smallest leaves.

I believed that when I danced in the wind the ivy, its mess of vines, its frayed edges, its shifting greens, danced too

That crushing its leaves would make a remedy fit for any scraped knee

That the morning dew were jewels meant just for me.

My vines have always come back before

I once stood anxious at the screen door

My dad holding my shoulder tight

Nothing to worry, she’s a tough girl–she’ll grow back, he said.

Tears no longer streak my cheeks

It’s just a plant I say

But on the days when my sister is home

And summer storms hang low

I feel the absence of my ivy 

Did it make you ache so, leaving me?

I wonder if the magic is gone

If I’ll never dance with her again

Or treat my bleeding knees with her green goo

Or watch the bugs get stuck in her crown of jewels.

I wonder if this means my fairy days are over

My life moving swiftly ahead of me 

I run to catch up

But a part of me still waits

For the ivy to grow.

Italics are Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, page 42.