From Mother, From the Soil – a poem by Carla Schwartz

From Mother, From the Soil

Your lawn, dear daughter, your lawn—
if you don’t water, will become wasteland.
Don’t forget those sprinklers I bought for you—
use them. 

a drought here
global warming
the soil cracked, dried

I couldn’t help but listen along with you 
to that book—The Invisible Bridge—
while you hauled wood chips 
around your yard.

I cried too when I heard Gleiwitz, 1938. 
I’ll never forget the flames, the broken glass.
I was just so young then,  
but look here—my tears still. 

Looks like you chipped that spout
on that teapot I made for you. Too bad 
your repair didn’t take. Just pitch it
into your garden—feed it clay.

I want to squeeze clay between my fingers
again—wet the clay 
and rub on slip as it dries. 
I want to make you a new pot.

This time I would get it right—
knead out all the air,
bake it not too hot,
not too long.

But I’m trapped—
I can’t move through this packed dust—
I’m rooted like the invasives 
you battle with.

I know how hard you try
(and don’t) to maintain all this—
I love you Dear Daughter
even though you fail at lawn.

Carla Schwartz’s poems have appeared in The Practicing Poet and her collections Signs of Marriage, Mother, One More Thing, and Intimacy with the Wind. Learn more at https://carlapoet.com, or on all social media @cb99videos. Recent/upcoming curations: Contemporary Haibun Online, Inquisitive Eater, Modern Haiku, Paterson Literary Review, New-Verse News, Spank the Carp, Drifting Sands, and The MacGuffin. Carla Schwartz received the New England Poetry Club E.E. Cummings Prize.