In a
sweat-soaked white t-shirt
my
dad is down on his knees,
putting onion sets into the
black, freshly-turned earth;
the
radio hanging from the
twelve-penny nail driven
into
the weathered post
at
the garden’s edge
crackles, testifying that the
darkening southwest sky
means
business.
The
Sox are ahead in the seventh,
and
the afternoon swelters;
he
looks up through fogged
glasses and smiles his
big,
beaming smile and
calls
me “sport” as I
walk
down past the orchard,
and
by the maple tree he
planted back in ’67 or ’68;
I
take a long, cold swig
of
green iced tea from
his
favorite big
plastic glass,
and
suddenly I am
at
ease in my recliner,
taking a long, cold swig
of
green iced tea out of
that
same glass,
two-and-a-half hours
and
thirty years away
from
the house on Chicago Street.
The
backyard is all lawn now,
and
only one apple tree remains,
but
Dad’s raspberry bushes survive,
down
at the very end,
and
every summer they deliver
a
red, sweet posthumous
gift
of outrageous abundance
that
connects us, even now;
but,
I still miss the onions.
—D. W. McMillen
30 April 2008
Back
