Iris Luckenbill Fitzgerald - 02/08/07 - 01/21/89

Iris Luckenbill, 2nd from right, front row.

I

On May 11, nineteen thirty-four,

you and Dad bought a house

in a small town in Indiana.

On the Mother's Day that followed

he planted a lilac bush. Perhaps

he said, "Happy Mother's Day!"

Then, in forty-nine, he died on you.

II

One summer's day in seventy-two --

I was thirty-two, you were sixty-five --

you asked if I'd prune the lilac.

I went out back to look.

Twelve, fourteen-feet tall.

Thick with stems.

Some around the edge drooping,

almost laying flat on the ground;

some violating the garden's space.

I went up to the hardware and bought a saw.

I came back. You squinted

into a bright afternoon; you shaded

your eyes with a salute of a hand.

I sawed away.

"This one too, don't you think?"

you'd say. I said it was up to you,

to just tell me what you wanted me to do.

III

Twenty years ago we chose a lilac dress for you.

On an amazingly warm January day

my five brothers and I bore you to your grave.

Our three sisters looked on and cried.

The priest intoned some intonations.

He sprinkled water onto the casket

with an aspergillum.

And then it was done.

I did not want to turn and go,

did not want to leave you there.

I did though,

and as I did I saw

the gravediggers across the way;

leaning against the back of a pickup truck,

waiting for the seventy of us to leave.

They had work to do;
it was just a job to them.

IV

Here's what's come to mind today:

Your pies were the world's best,

as perfect as T.S. Eliot's poems,

and no one else's crust comes close.

"Don't work the dough too much," you'd instruct.

Only you, though, seemed to know

how much is too much.

And what I wouldn't give for one of your

from-scratch chocolate cakes with that icing

that was flavored with stale coffee.

And I'd love some of your fried chicken;

I can see you prepping it,

shaking it in a brown paper bag

into which you'd put seasonings and flour.

And I think of your gardens,

your year after year after year gardens,

your straight and disciplined rows of onions,

of lettuce, of beans, of tomatoes and of corn.

And I think of your hair, always in a bun,

except when it was being washed or dried --

dried sometimes in the summer sun.

V

The house ended up in my name.

Five years ago I sold it to my brother Jim.

We made a deal: 5 lump sums, 5 annual payments.

He asked, "What day to you want them payments due?"

"Doesn't matter to me," I said to him.

"How's about we make them due on the

eighth of February ... that way I'll never forget."

VI

The lilac bush is still there.

I still have that saw, too, by the way;

it's a good one.

VII

I think this poem could use some pruning.

Some of my lines are drooping I suspect,

some are laying almost flat on the ground.

"This one, too, don't you think?"

I might say to myself.

But no. Enough's enough.

I'm closing this notebook;

I'm putting it on my notebook shelf.

My mother, drying her hair in the sun, 1972,
in front of lilac bush.