Canning my childhood

I grew up in my mother’s home office/supply store with stacks of papers and possibilities

for poetry and practice drawings, me in stick figures, tall and lanky, grabbing up rebounds with go-go- gadget arms at Salvation Armies and NYAA. I grew up here too, on basketball courts and softball

diamonds and soccer fields on tracks going round and round like merry-gos with my father in the wings

coaching everything and in between: cut the grass in headphones with music roaring over

the engine and my sing-along of angst and protest, the libretto of youth…

pick up the branches

in piles all around

the yard

rake and bag the leaves

from Evergreens to Magnolia trees, Oaks, Elms, Apple and Japanese Maple, Bushes, shrubs, and

topiaries. I grew up too, in a botanical wonder. Rose gardens, wildflowers, vegetable beds, and pots

growing like pots simmering inside on the stove with grapes cooked down to taste like Welches juice then turned to jars of jelly or tomatoes made into winter stockpiles lining up in single file on pantry

shelves, waiting their turn for stew. I was prepared here like this as well, washed and parted,

conditioned and dried, rubbed with oil til shiny faced and holding heat with the hot comb sizzling

in my ears like bacon into the grease. I grew up most in the kitchen, making food and people, late nights

of Christmas cookies for classmates and Sunday mornings crisp for Christ, this communion of living.