Giovanni and the Magnolia Tree

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Hot pink flowers growing through green grass

Yellow cosmos glowing to be seen

Cherry laurel with a network of roots

Choke the yard. Call them choke-cherries.

A neighbor who owns a store knocks

On our door, wants to know if he can chop our

Chokers that grow yellow, inedible seed pods

That drop to the ground like accomplices to

The network of underground roots that choke out all other vegetation.

“I have too much energy,” says Giovanni “don’t want to spend it at the fitness center.”

We said yes, but tied a ribbon to the small, misshaped baby Magnolia

Which yearned to be free of overshadowing.

On Sundays, sometimes, we’d hear the crack of the ax

Against a tree and the ker-thump when the giant fell.

We never had one pang of remorse.

We and the magnolia wanted sunlight and at least a glimpse of blue

When most of the cherry laurels were gone,

The magnolia began to grow.

It was warped and scraggly and would never be anything but a runt.

Didn’t look like other magnolias, but it was free now and perhaps someday we’d pick a big flower from its

Boughs and wouldn’t have to ask someone else in the neighborhood

For a blossom to put in on a bowl where it could fill our olfactories with

Fragrance and our eyes with its creamy white petals and bright yellow filaments.

One day, I suppose it was a few years later,

I happened to look out a high window

To see the Magnolia tree, though still not shapely,

Reaching with its grateful branches

Into blue background

Taller than the remaining cherry laurels

With every dark green leaf polished to a flash.

In my mind the tree

Told me all it had needed was light

And there it was, thriving,

Giovanni thrived, too

And fairly newly married has

Possessed a baby son,

Giovanni may be seen every day walking the

New walking child

On cold days the tot wears a thick white sweater with a fuzzy, matching cap.

Sometimes you see them with the stroller coming home from store up near the highway.

Maybe someday they will chop trees or hike the world just to be together and spend their energy.

And the magnolia with be white with flowers.

Tags: nature, Poem, Poetry