Read Reaching for Sun Online

Authors: Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Reaching for Sun (4 page)

BOOK: Reaching for Sun
4.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

reading a gardening magazine

or at least find one

blanketing her chest

as she snores

in her hammock

stretched over the unfurling face of hosta

and fingers of ferns.

The old

sycamores out back

create dollops of shade.

You can find Mom

(if she’s home)

slumped over the landscape designs

(her final semester project),

long runner’s legs

forever twitching or swinging—

the woman never sits still.

Now you can find me

with Jordan,

parked in the garden

building a trap for insects

or graphing the growth on our marigold plants

or just watching the day yawn,

noting in my notebook

all the changes I see.

the question

We’re building

a tadpole fort

complete with fresh water

dipped from the creek

and beta food from the pet store

when Jordan asks

(like no one else will):

“You have cerebral palsy, don’t you?”

Surprised, I only nod.

“Were you born with it?”

I nod again.

“How does it happen?”

“A vein pops in the brain

and ruins the parts

where it spills.”

He nets up a tadpole,

measures it,

and writes down the data.

“What’s the hardest part?”

I don’t hesitate:

“Everyone thinking I’m retarded.”

“But Josie,

you know tons of stuff! Anybody

who talks to you knows that.”

But at school,

only Jordan knows.

three feet square

One of the four

experiments

Jordan and I have running

in the garden

is a patch of dirt

three feet square.

Nothing much interesting about it—

a mint plant,

some scraggly Russian sage,

and three peonies with ants

always exploring the velvety pink blooms.

Once a week

we study this one plot of land,

count the insects,

describe and graph the changes in the plants,

take a picture for a time line too.

Jordan’s taught me

not to glance

but to
look
,

even study,

the complicated lace of a web,

the frilly holes from beetle snacks,

the dew like diamond earrings on the tips of leaves—

finding miniature miracles

I was once blind to.

kiss of life

Finally, for Mother’s Day,

we get Granny a gift that’s not

“too good to use”

(new slippers remain wrapped

in tissue paper in the top of her closet

with all our other good ideas).

We got her a pump

since the old well has been dry

for a year now.

She casts that twenty-pound pump

in the creek

like a left-handed pitcher

in a Little League game.

Gran will stand like a preacher

over her hollyhock, columbine, lady’s mantle,

and coneflower,

humming hymns to them

with her wand of water,

baptizing each bed

with the kiss of life.

wildflower mix

Summer’s not far away—

I dream of

sleeping in late

with no nagging from Mom

for ten whole weeks.

But without asking,

Mom registered me

for a summer clinic

so speech and occupational therapists

can test their latest methods

on me.

But I’m sick of spending

all my time

working on what’s wrong

with me.

I don’t want to be

pruned or pinched back

like a wilting petunia.

I want this summer

to be a wildflower-seed mix.

And me, surprised

by what blooms.

like me

The bulldozers

are at it again,

ripping out more trees

as they come closer each season.

And my favorite:

an enormous elm

who held the sun’s golden face

in her arms the whole day.

But this spring

half the branches wear no leaves,

claimed by disease or insects.

So the bulldozers

tear it from the soil

with their terrible teeth

and splatter the leaves and limbs

like garbage.

Why can’t they see

that half still blooms—

like me?

summer

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie—
True Poems flee—

—Emily Dickinson

never

Mom’s making me help her

cut the last blooming iris,

the first daisies.

Our tools talk to each other

though our lips are silent.

Jordan stops over, and she puts

him to work too.

We take the flowers on over to

the folks at Lazy Acres

nobody else goes to see.

Impatient

with Elma’s long, wandering story,

Mom’s leg under the table

sways like a metronome.

Her thoughts, I bet,

back in her books

about running a landscape center,

that half-baked attention

I recognize while she

tries to wait for my words too.

Then, she’s back—

remembering to ask Mr. Howard

about his sick grandson,

comes round beside him,

pats his leathery brown hand—

listens to him

like her favorite song.

Jordan plops next to me

on the worn pink couch.

His face smeared with an awkward smile,

like he sewed it on at the door.

He squeezes my knee

with his sweaty hand

and it throbs, like a heartbeat,

under his touch

and though I’m sure he’s ready to go

I never want to move.

note

It’s the last day of school—

lockers stand open, bare.

The floor is piled with graded papers,

book reports,

ripped folders everywhere.

The teachers wear easy smiles.

In between room 204

and language arts,

I meet Jordan at my locker.

I hand him

the first note I ever wrote

a friend.

In it I tell him about

that clinic

Mom signed me up for

and ask him what I should do.

The next class takes forever

and my hands sweat

and my heart feels like a million monarchs

are inside it,

waiting for his words.

I open my locker

to find his one-sentence response:

Tell her you don’t want to go.

As if she would listen

to me.

cold strands of spaghetti

Gran hands me a gigantic

philodendron,

vines so long they wind

around the top of the kitchen cabinets,

then hit the floor.

“Tell me,” she says, “what you see.”

“It needs water.”

“How do you know?”

“The leaves, they’re droopy.”

“What else?”

“Some of the leaves are yellow; it might need a feeding.”

“Yes. Now ease it out of that pot.”

When I do, I see the roots are knotted

like cold strands of spaghetti.

“What does that mean, Josie?”

“It needs more room to grow.”

“Exactly. That plant tells us exactly

how it wants to be treated.

You might learn something

from a philodendron.”

graduation

Today is Mom’s graduation

from Tidewater Community College

with her associate’s in business

and landscape design.

She’s the first ever

in our family

to get a degree.

Gran dropped out

in eighth grade to help on the farm

when her brothers got called up

for the war.

When they never came back

Gran gave up her dream

of being a stewardess—

and traveling all over the world.

But someday

I’ll buy us a flight to France

and we’ll sit under the Eiffel Tower

sharing a croissant.

daydreamer

In the box of summer clothes

I find

the scrapbook I made

last summer:

tickets I created to places I’ve never been,

letters to friends that never existed,

pressed flowers from the garden.

I’m daydreaming about how different

this summer can be

when Jordan finds me—

so excited his voice snaps like a twig—

about a science camp

that lasts four weeks this summer.

“Besides,” he says, “you’ll be in that clinic

anyway.”

A slap of words across my face.

the red plate

If you get good grades,

or graduate,

land a new job,

or just any small thing,

Gran will fix your favorite meal

and serve you on our

one red plate.

Mom’s had it twice this month

already,

and now with her new job

at the landscape center in town

I guess it’ll be nasty

liver and onions again.

I’m craving my favorite—

breakfast for dinner,

Gran’s biscuits and gravy.

But I can’t think of a way

to earn it

yet.

ripples of sunlight

Mom surprises Granny and me

with a weekend getaway

to celebrate the start of summer,

our first-ever vacation.

But best of all—

she invites Jordan!

The three-room cabin

is built on stilts and it feels

like a tree house

hidden in leaves.

The campground has mini golf,

movies out under the stars,

and a lake!

Granny wears her goofy

polka-dotted bathing suit

with the frilly skirt;

her wide hips

slip out the side like bread dough

rising in a pan.

She doesn’t seem to care—

floats on top of the lake

like she owns the whole place.

Mom’s turquoise bikini

flaunts her taut muscles

and sculpted thighs.

Her red hair fans out

like a peacock behind her.

Jordan is pasty white

in his black swimming trunks;

his shoulders look like the nub

of new growth on a tree.

In my swimsuit I feel exposed—

a seedling in a late frost.

My bony limbs all akimbo,

gaps in my purple suit instead of curves

like all the other girls

seem to have,

but my body nearly obeys me in water.

Jordan notices my freedom

though he doesn’t seem to see the rest,

and we dunk each other

and chase,

his warm hands on my goose-fleshed

arms;

for the first time

someone touches me

like I won’t shatter under their fingers.

Ripples of sunlight

spill in my veins,

and I wish

just this once

I could stop time.

maybe just a little

We take an afternoon to visit Monticello.

Mom and Jordan

share the pamphlet

about Jefferson’s garden,

their shadows blending, two trees.

They talk in their

scientific geek code—

genus, phylum, species.

Mom even throws her arm

around his shoulders;

he looks up at her

like
she
invented

Jefferson’s cannonball clock

we saw in the foyer of his famous home.

It makes me sick,

and maybe just a little jealous.

Jordan must wish

my mom was his,

and maybe she dreams

she’d given birth

to the perfect little genius.

I must be a real disappointment—

stunted foliage,

no yield.

cricket lullabies

In the car

Jordan taught me

Morse code.

Now at night,

through the thin pine boards

between our bunks,

we tap out messages

to each other.

My words finally able

to keep up with thoughts

off a page.

I decide

there’s no way I’m going

to summer school

no matter what

Mom thinks—

I’m spending every second with Jordan

before he leaves.

Crickets sing their lullabies

to us,

and before dawn stretches

her arms into a new day

sleep tucks me in.

suit yourself

Gran and Jordan

decide to canoe across

the small campground lake.

They ask me to come,

but since I can’t paddle,

I’d be stuck down

in the middle

like some baby.

I refuse.

Granny shrugs.

“Suit yourself.”

They finally find a life jacket

that fits Granny’s ample apple shape.

BOOK: Reaching for Sun
4.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Presidential Shift by Cooper, C. G.
Transparency by Frances Hwang
My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen
Perfecting Fiona by Beaton, M.C.
The Double Rose by Valle, Lynne Erickson
The Sound of Us by Poston, Ashley
Baby Love by WALKER, REBECCA