the magnolia blossom

MAGNOLIAS

alabama:

the first,

a girl child.


the rocking chair

is cold,

the porch colder,

but i could sit

here for a year,

thinking of my child,

her dwindling.

the magnolias

too are

windswept

graveward.

neither live

oak nor reed

resists the

weather's breath,

but each lets go

its green,

its living part.


spring,

when it comes,

is at first wet,

becoming lush,

giving way

to the darkgreen darkness

where magnolia leaves

hover like wings,

inches off the receding earth.

then the blooms on the tree will open.

they are so clearly flesh of

our flesh.

without the prolonging bone,

so clearly transitory.

when touched --

and i touch them --

the blossoms smudge,

the flesh dying beneath my acid hands,

turning brown in the shape of fingertips.

andrew hudgins

from saints and strangers
c copyright 1985