False Spring

Figure 1.1
February 17. 65 degrees in SE Ohio. Our minds shift to "April" "earth," "skirts." We check lawns for daffodils-in-the-making, our laundry remembering how to flap. No one checks the 10-day forecast. We don't want to know.

Figure 1.2
On my way to play piano for a college ballet class, I spot a sunflower the size of my palm on the sidewalk ahead. Escaped from a bouquet? I think, excited, Or a sign that spring's settled in? I reach down to be its rescue--find out it's plastic. The rest of my day feels the same.

Figure 1.3
A college town openly displays its secrets, especially when snow finally melts. Crushed green glass and leopard bikini briefs, abandoned; an open pizza box with a necklace inside; cigarette butts, the tail-ends of conversations never finished. This time of year, the ground can reflect us.

Figure 1.4
For seven weeks, I gently build up to two questions, give my college students hard homework: What does it mean to be a writer in a time of war?, What would you ask a soldier if you could ask anything? Only half the class shows up to answer. I come home and pull the covers over my head, just another bulb.

Figure 1.5
The full moon pulls out dreams like silk pajamas from open drawers. For weeks, my sleep's been filled with characters in plain dress, actors in bonnets or suspenders pretending to be something they're not. I am the one who calls them out, reveals their false identities. Exact accusations from these dreams: "Who's your bishop?," "What have you given up?," "What's your favorite cheese?" The question I get most often about my upbringing: "What makes you different from me?" Sometimes, it also feels like accusation.

Figure 1.5a
Last night, I was going to build a house on the edge of my grandpa's farm--but in the dream, I didn't recognize the land. I wake up frightened.

Figure 1.6
The wind stirs up more questions, allergies, afternoons under the covers. How long can a Mennonite last without community?, Have the squirrels eaten all the daffodil bulbs?, Could my students spend a whole day in silence? Could I?, Who will shake our lives gently, tell us, 'Shhhh--You've just been dreaming'?

Figure 1.7
Even Thoreau kept secrets hidden by the louder things he said, had his mother do his laundry. The wind blows our socks from the clothesline and into the woods. The president gives a speech. We forget what we're funding. It's too warm to care. I may never know what my students have learned from me.

Figure 1.8
Accepting the shape of one life takes practice. Remember asking for someone to help you trace the outline of your body on a sheet of torn-off paper? Did you recognize yourself as only border? I swear, just now, I smelled what the garden could be.


(Photo by Nico Nelson on Flickr)