Elegy for My Mother's Mother

Grandfather had greenhouses full of flowers;

Full of carnations: pink, red, and white. They were

Beautiful flowers.

Fragile and fragrant, they rose from wooden beds.

Morning’s sun would filter through whitewash overhead

Warming the petals.

Grandmother and I would seek the fullest blooms.

We’d cut them low so the stems would be long;

Long-stemmed carnations.

I would snip the flowers that she had chosen

And quietly spirit them from the garden

Long before noon hour.

She rejoiced to have me toil by her side

Carrying carnations to the house where we’d

Staple the sepals.

Stapling the sepals helped keep the petals firm

Before the florists came in vans to take them.

Florists sold flowers.

Flowers for sale. I never knew who would buy

Flowers or why, because I viewed them freely:

Grandmother’s flowers.

Grandmother died in May, the month for flowers.

People came to praise her, poet and pioneer.

I was but thirteen,

So what could I know of Issei pioneers?

I only knew that they had brought her flowers:

Flowers bought in stores.