THE OLD FRUIT GARDEN
MEMORY
THROUGH tortured weeks of hospital surgery
The old fruit garden of my childhood days
Grew close about me. Through black storms of pain
Swayed joyous boughs of rosy apple-bloom;
White blossomed branches of an old plum-tree;
Old grape-vines clinging to a sunny wall;
Great bushes of red currants and raspberries.
Through hours of torturing thirst I found again
That old fruit garden—as if body and soul
Clutched at cool juicy fruits—remembering—
Devouring them through a parched mouth of the brain.
GRAPES
Grandfather was so courtly, wise and calm:
At times a sweet old wordling, dealing balm
Through business phrase or words of ancient psalm,
Justice and whimsical kindliness to all.
As he watched mankind, so in early Fall,
He watched his grape-vines on the stable wall.
In old Quebec the season is too brief
To ripen grapes well ... sometimes scarlet leaf
Becomes a herald swift beyond belief.
The few big clusters with pale purple bloom
So slowly deepening, often met their doom
When rich October caught November’s gloom.
He never lost his interest ... every Fall
He saw his grape-vines as he’d dreamed them, all
Weighed down with purple riches, growing tall
Over the stable windows. On the way
To the rose garden where he walked each day ...
“These grapes are riper than last year” he’d say.
In spite of all the travelling he’d done
He sought no changes now and thought “no sun
Could be much brighter than a Canadian one!”
Yet I knew well his grapes brought visions fair
Of mellow summer lands with temperate air.
“Grapes are like men—can’t ripen everywhere....
Men all need sun, and right loam I suppose;
But if one strikes deep roots ... as a rule ... he grows!”
He smiled his smile and cut a late white rose.
RED CURRANTS
“Well! The red currants must be picked to-day.
They’re ready for jelly” Grandmother would say.
She never wasted words yet had her way.
In cool gray cotton gown, and black straw hat
Securely tied—She made a point of that
Though no breeze stirred the lilacs where she sat
To superintend old Jock and Marie Anne
At tasks of picking. When her palm-leaf fan
Waved slowly all was well; but my blood ran
Quicker when it moved very fast ... one knew
The hours were slipping past ... then old Jock too
And Marie Anne, would pick with greater zest.
“Granny! Red currant jelly’s much the best!”
“Black’s best for colds” she’d say, as she caressed
With firm kind fingers my rough curly head.
She rarely kissed me. Deep within was bred
Acid reserve and purity ... those red
Ripe currants, with their pleasant acid tang,
Seemed to me just like Grandmother! I sang
My multiplication-tables till they rang
Loud through the garden where dear Granny sat
Smiling—well-pleased—with firmly-tied black hat!
AMBER RASPBERRIES
Old Jock and Marie Anne could never find
Raspberries of the glowing amber kind
To fill the “ancient porcelain bowl.” (’Twas lined
With amber glaze; outside a gold vine wound
In such a graceful pattern round and round.)
But if my Mother looked she always found
Enough to fill the bowl. That day we’d three
Distinguished guests. I loved to have them see
My lovely Mother as she looked at tea....
Her gown of creamy lace—her shining hair,
Her beads of old carved amber ... all her rare
Fragile soft richness, like the berries there
With their pale amber bloom. I loved her so....
I wished that every body there could know....
“Why don’t you eat your berries, Child?” ... then low
I bent my head to hide two burning tears
Of yearning love. How strange those vague cold fears
My child heart knew that day ... what long long years
Since those last lovely hours of ecstasy
When she made Beauty live and thrill for me.