A Toast to the Billions of Billions of Blossoms - David Handsher

Larry Robinson Lrobpoet at sonic.net
Sun Sep 10 06:18:36 PDT 2023


A Toast to the Billions of Billions of Blossoms

My great grandfather would say
God made the moon
to remind us that even
in the dark of the night
somewhere out of our sight
the sun still lights a path
in the universe

These thoughts he thought
in Yiddish. So when he thought
“made” he said to himself “kokh” —
cook or bake,
for he was a simple man,
living in a small town
outside of Minsk.

He was known as a kind man
a man of wisdom and when he was dying
and his children gathered around,
including his granddaughter,  my mother,
family legend has it that he whispered  
his last words, barely audible:
Life is .... it is... a shit-show.

Of course, he said that too in Yiddish
and over the generations something
might have been lost in the retelling.  
I thought of him this morning
as I picked up a dead dry
magnolia leaf strewn on the path
leading from our front door.

There was still green and yellow but it
was mostly brown now, its veins and venules
protruding, suspended between life and death.
Something had eaten away part of its still sugared
skin: worms or larva and now it was being readied
for decomposition, ready for the microbes and molds
that would consume it into a dust on the surface

of earth, ready for the worms, to crawl through
as they cast off their sweet purifying waste
fertile and rich and when mixed with rain
giving rise to the flowered wild growth
from seeds spewed in the feces of wending
crows and tiny birds who gather writhing
insects in their beaks to feed their babies.

	- David Handsher


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