KATHARYN HOWD MACHAN | SHOW YOUR SON WHERE THE MILKWEED GREW

SHOW YOUR SON WHERE THE MILKWEED GREW

Take him walking on the land that was.

Point out where you climbed the pine

with branches far enough apart

for you to wend your way through needles

and never mind the sticky sap.

Talk of birds, how you had learned

their different songs and how they helped

to make you feel you were alive

and might grow wings, might fly.

Explain how earthworms turned back dirt

to even better soil for gardens.

Gardens? Yes, where people grew good food

and gathered it in woven baskets

to cook in their homes with love.

Murmur about what used to be a mountain.

Describe how sky shone clearest blue

above a lake, above a forest.

And when you reach the place you ran

through grass and flowers, your feet bare,

try not to weep when he cannot believe

there once were butterflies.

Katharyn Howd Machan writes poetry and memoir on her Dragon Patio when weather allows and elsewhere when it doesn’t. As a professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College, she mentors students in fairy-tale-based creative writing courses. Her most recent publications are A Slow Bottle of Wine (The Comstock Writers, Inc., 2020) and Dark Side of the Spoon (The Moonstone Press, 2022). For spirit and body, she belly dances.