The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Catherine Chandler

Heartwood

For the woman with a blanket covering her face,
parked in the hallway of the nursing home.

When she was young she used to know
the Latin name for mistletoe;
loved both the bloom, the chestnut bur,
the grackle's caw, the cricket's chirr,
the sun, the storm, the afterglow.

And still the seasons come and go,
the Pyrus in her orchard grow
another ring, another spur.
When she was young

she tended them. Then came the snow.
Now in a frail voice, tremolo,
she whispers "pear" as if it were
ineffable as petrichor,
as time tilts back to long ago
when she was young.