“My Lily Maker”

At the request of a dear friend, the author of the Yummy Montana blog, here is the poem by Laurie, the owner of the previous entry’s garden, about how she and I together created a garden full of lilies: trumpet, oriental, species, asiatic.  The lilies themselves are from Van Engelen and B&D Lilies.  Laurie likes to publish her poem under the name L Ann Buscher.

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My Lily Maker by L. Ann Buscher

I told her it would be her own
this garden of mine so overgrown
that even the gardener I had before
climbed back in his truck
and slammed the door
with woods and every exotic thing
that ever once existed
then unseen.

She knew the garden and loved the spot
and gave her all, for all she got
and soon we had a piece of pie
sliced for the sweetest gardener’s eye
and me in my uncertainty
could not tell a weed from a wannabe
so when she asked what my favorite was
I untied my tongue, said “the purple one”
and so she knew
she had herself a doozey.
By chance she planted bulbs I liked
the size of dinner plates that
made me think of Great Aunt Lily
and how she showed me
the Empress of Japan in the
bottom of her tea cup.

I was five, and magic happened.
Then, as I got ill, I found a friend
so frail and tired herself
but when we shared
she took the time to greet me,
with her heart
her name was lily too.  I think of them
when finding porcelain painted on long
stalks in the garden.

So Skyler’s garden it is called, when
horses are not trampling
and does with fawns are happening.
Although I do not know the names
of blossoms reaching, snarled, untamed
I know the gardener, just the same, who
loves the land as I do.
And should her interests ever stray
I hope she find her inner fortitude
encouraging sun on a cloudy day
My Lily Maker

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Notes: I think the flowers “the size of dinner plates” to which the poem refers are the dahlias given to me by my friend Sheila.  I planted them at Laurie’s as my own garden did not have enough sun.

My lack of WordPress formatting skills prevent me from laying out the poem quite as Laurie herself did; below is a photo of the framed copy she gave me after the garden tour.