HIBISCUS
It takes faith to coax a plant
from root to bloom. And
the gardener is a believer.
Working the soil, he replenishes
missing nutrients, creates a fertile bed
before a single shoot appears.
In his mind’s eye, he sees the white
trumpet-shaped petals long before
the woody stalk begins its ascent.
All summer long, he tends cascading
wisteria, showy dinner plate dahlias
blasting out flugelhorns of color
patiently waiting for that time near
summer’s end when the virginal blossom
with fuchsia center opens—
shimmers in the morning sunlight
only to close and drop at sunset.
All he invests in that single blossom
carries with it the weight and
significance of a solitary moment.
Next door, a long-awaited baby
was born. The years and months
leading to her birth was spent
envisioning a family of two
becoming three. But the dream
fulfilled lasted two short months
obliterated—
by an anonymous truck driver
who took this new mother in full bloom
plucked her from her own abundant garden
and dropped her hard to the ground.
Like the gardener who anticipates the
future we, too, need to believe in plans
despite uncertainty in the cycle of seasons
Jan Marin Tramontano has published three poetry chapbooks, Woman Sitting in a Café and other poems of Paris, Floating Islands: New and Collected Poems, and Paternal Nocturne, in addition to her father’s memoir, I Am a Fortunate Man. Her poems also appear in her poetry collective’s anthology, Java Wednesdays. and Hudson Valley Writers Guild, Peer Glass Review. Standing on the Corner of Lost and Foundis her first novel. She belongs to the International Women’s Writers Guild, served on the board and as program chair of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, and is a member of Poets House and the American Academy of Poets.