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