The Memory Of Winter - Gail Onion

[Lawrence Robinson]

The Memory Of Winter

		“What the garlic needs to sprout is the memory of winter”

A memory of winter is necessary 
and a sense of justice, a holy 
perseverance 
so summer endures to
fulfill the destiny of light,

gives seasons twining,
braiding into each other
the irrepressible music unheard is a 
vibrating chant,
stitching memory to memory,
coiling between now and then,

there will be a cello for the violins
there will be fir trees for the roses,
there will be a 4 point buck
for the leaping fawn, 
there will be the silence
of the ice-glazed pond,
 
there will be the hurl, twist, 
thrust and gleam 
of river and stream.
 
Earth gives measure, precision, 
ripening balance, 
for plants and beings
who live for the light, 
light that becomes 
heartwood and flesh,
leaves and fruit,
  
where chrysalis meets wing throb,
octopus disappears 
through a hummingbird sized hole.
 
And summer seizes and sears, 
slants plants who grow
hungrier and hungrier, 
sunflowers tilt up, in
reverence for the sun,
corn swells, 
beans pop pods, 
berries plump,
tomatoes topple stalks,
under green sweating waves,
melons capsize.
 
There are sights too swift to see,
copulations and births,
too numerous to tell,
battles in the lust 
for light, spin with intention 
from the ground 
upward and downward,
from the visible 
to the invisible, 
this yearning for treasure 
gives treasures 
from the light spawned in
sheer joy of being, as light
takes a rapturous bite of light.

Our human employment 
is to help plants be plants
as good faithful servants of the green. 
As we garden, we garden each other.
Winter memory reminds us
to dig deeper 
bring water to the parched
places 
rake apart spaces 
so breath moves into roots, 
makes room for the vine.

Dropped seeds devour light, 
fill and filling,
hive, creature, den, web, nest,
drink in the sun juice, 
while we 
till and toil, tamp down soil,
prune the dark away,
sow the green robes,
millions of leaf years
in the making,
keep their story
growing into the sky, 
down under the ground, an
undulating green tide, 
of their desires 
strengthen in the waiting 
striving never relenting, 
teaching us as we wait, to
have patience, be hospitable,
stern defending as we need to,
determined 
as plants are.

If we who are 
hungry for light, 
life and justice,
remember our suffering 
through winter after winter,
remembered in rings of a tree,
cocoons shells eggs nests
returned to, year after year,
memories of deprivation, drought,
adversity, 
but how resilience and
cooperation, 
continued us,
sustained us,

no different than plants
for whom 
light, life and justice are
worth working for,
worth waiting for
and we will.

	- Gail Onion