Christine Shook
Some Flowers Persist
In late August, I return to the park to see the flowers. Under patches of thick broadleaf, violets bloom. My mother kept violets in small clay pots. They never fully bloomed or died. In the morning she collected the dead petals lying on the windowsill and then, moved the pots into a stream of morning sunlight. She said she was no good with flowers. After father died, and the children gone, she tried again. Burgundy coleus flourished on the windowsill.
Violets grew wild in my sister’s back yard. Her only daughter spent the afternoon trying to chain their slender stems together. By evening they lay in a heap by the back door. I realize I am still here without mother or sister. They died without word. In the silence, a breeze flutters my body and the heat subsides.
Father waits by the river wavering limbs of sycamore silver in moonlight
About the Author
Christine Shook lives in New York City and has been writing tanka for over 20 years. She studied with Clark Strand, author of Seeds from a Birch Tree. Her tanka appeared in Ribbons and tanka prose in Haibun Today.