The Art of Opening Up

To my mother,

You kneel before your lilies and roses and

I perch amongst the blueberry bushes in summer,

And we are both cultivating something.

We are both hoping that time spent before petals

Will show us the secret of opening up,

Of stripping off armor and learning to be

Soft like new buds and

Sweet like summer berries.

We have become less like family

And more like statues of women,

Carved from iron,

Shaped from steel,

Forged from bronze,

Weathering the storms of the world.

Once, you showed me a photo of you,

Young, with your black hair golden in the sunlight.

You smiled in a cotton sundress, and I

Imagine that once you were carefree and bright.

In that moment, you were

Unhampered by the burdens of your own parents,

You were not Atlas then.

You bloomed in color,

You fell in love with my father,

You start a new life in a new country.

You bring your unborn child to the statue of liberty,

And you hope that her bronze flame will welcome her

And despite the cold,

Despite the trailer parks and long nights waitressing,

Her torch keeps you warm, and your embrace

Keeps me warm.

There is no metallic mask yet,

And I dance under azaleas in the rain,

There are yellow galoshes on my feet and

A pink umbrella on my arm. There is

Oatmeal around my mouth and a

Bowl cut on my head and a cat in my blankets.

You were a nurturer of wisteria blossoms,

The giver and guardian of good-night kisses,

And on my sixth birthday you gave me six

Blueberry trees because you knew

I loved to paint with the indigo juice and that

Purple fingers in the summertime made

Me feel like a fairy.

Yet now, only one of these trees remain;

It is leafless and aches for more sun,

And it bears only sour fruit.

We moved from apples to wind to the land of Charles,

And we lost an orchard and the ability to communicate

Without the echoes of screams.

Now you become Atlas, but not the giver of fire.

You are the titan chained to a rock and repetition,

you are ice and steel forged from the fires of adversity

And you cover the worn-through and frayed edges of

Your soul with a shell of silvery ore.

I build a coat of armor too. If I am

Hard diamond, unyielding titanium,

I will avoid pain and failure and protect my heart.

We don’t talk anymore,

It is hard to speak through layers of alloy.

We scream and yell through our armor,

And the tears that don’t leak through the cracks

Freeze over shells of hearts.

Yet, as tree roots grow through cracks in the pavement,

Our armor fractures upon common ground.

We meet in the garden, in the spring,

When greenery dances from the frosted earth,

When daffodils announce the arrival of sunshine,

When foliate magic sings in gales.

We nurture the crocuses and tulips,

We learn tenderness from the lilies of the valley,

We shed layers of ice and iron and as

The earth thaws, we too

Shed layers of ice and iron.

We learn to be lionhearted from the amaryllis,

We become tenacious like the azaleas,

We grow brave enough to tear down silver walls.

We learn patience from the peonies, and

The art of opening up from the roses so that

When summertime spreads her emerald wings,

Perhaps the fruit from the last blueberry tree

Will taste sweeter than before and maybe,

Mother, we will both love our indigo fingers.