Azalea

I can still hear her voice
talking about them, blooming
like a bright gentle flower
from the bushes along the greens and fairways
sweet and slow as a
southern afternoon, spiced up
like the wine-soaked pork chops
and etouffet she loved to make

I can still feel her hands,
floral with lotion and soft
as butterfly’s wings, plus
almost as fragile,
navigating the click of
knitting needles and crochet hooks,
lap billowing with the
ever-increaside tide of blankets
that gushed from her
old-fashioned, polite generosity

I can still hear the porch
screen door slam
on its spring, and the earthy
pound of horses outside in
the paddock, while birds cracked seed
and cicadas sang us into another
sultry Louisiana night

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This poem pretends to be about Azaleas – but really it’s about my maternal grandmother, my Grand-mere – whose voice spoke the name of those flowers with the most beautiful music. She loved golf, she loved nature; she would always talk about watching The Masters each spring. Born in New Orleans, for many years she lived on my Uncle’s horse farm in Coushatta; I would visit her there every summer and the memory of it is as fresh now as if I had last been there yesterday instead of over 20 years ago. The photograph you see at the top is the closest thing I could find to resemble the wild beautiful landscape there.

Thank you for reading!