Leaf Mother

Mother, if I had a jar of soil from your garden, I would carry it with me for the rest of my life and tell it all my secrets. Stem mother. Leaf mother. Oklahoma mother who made me half of who I am. I long for the soil you worked with your hands knowing how precious it was compared with the dirt you knew as a child. Mother, you turned me into snowball blossoms just like the shrub you planted for me right before I was born. Nine months pregnant, your puffy hands lowered the rootball into the hole you dug. You don’t even know I finally bloomed. Nobody does. But I did.