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Sursum Corda

SURSUM CORDA 

(for Ruth and Clement Mc Cormack, 
Bridgton, Maine)

“Come see us, we’ll talk about the job."

you were convalescent, generous, 
and anxious to get your hands moving
into the garden among the buds and birdsong 
ready to get your mind off the disease
and get a grip on the healing green
rise of Spring

the woodbine was a naked scrawling then
as the flowerers raged in wild crowds of color 

in the open barn…the big riding mower
and hidden in your field the granite mounds
of large blade killer rocks sneaky under grass
you pointed out camouflaged those to avoid  
yet in my long mowing dreams under the sun
the steel crash with granite screeched up nerves 
you had to teach me how to flip the machine over
like a red turtle on its back and change the blades
a city boy I was happy to learn new country ways

now I know the names and habits
of dozens of herbs and perennials.
your patience has filled my notebook.
too soon summer’s over and scarlet 
is notorious in September in the leaves
and Woodbine stripping naked again
crawling down to join the falling leaves

how many times I’ve mowed those fields
between the stone walls and summer
months beneath the moody dominions
of Maine skies
while my nine year-old played nearby
and your English Setters lived the good life
with an eye on the kids and woodchucks

then summer ended like a calendar’s 
monthly scene flipped back to memory 
it is time to put the bulbs in a bag
and take the sweaters out
check the wood, adjust the mood
for pumpkins and Fryeburg Fair

outside you and I and “the kid” stood together 
overlooking the silent gardens and fields preparing 
for sleep as a mood of endings came 

we said our not too-sad good-byes
and recalled some of my first tripping days here
the wild azaleas and hummingbirds
on the Sweet Joe Pye Weed and it’s butterflies
the wild heart of open fields knows its pollinators 
and its place among the meadow roses and weeds

then you pointed over the barn door to the Latin 
phrase and asked my daughter:
“My child, do you know what that means?”
neither of us did.  You smiled and said in a firm,
cancer-free voice, “Sursum Corda, it means, 
Lift up your hearts!’”

when I drove by your great white Colonial 
with the archway garden entrance and the black
shutters and all the new people gathered talking 
though I see only us…from the road 
like an old silent movie

Charles Eastland 
from Amazon Kindle eBook, The Car Has Ears

Copyright © Charles Eastland | Year Posted 2019

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