I remember thirty nine forty Maryland Road
where, upstairs, I played my favorite record, “ Fire, fire, fire
put the fire out. Here come the firemen to put the fire out!”
The sweet scent of acacia trees filled my room.
“Thirty nine forty,” where on Sunday morning I’d wake up to Bing,
our canary singing with music coming from the living room,
“Rum and Coca-Cola,” “Deep in the Heart of Texas,”
and “ Cement Mixer Put-Ti, Put-Ti.”
Where Mother Kitty, the homeless neighborhood cat,
wouldn’t let me get into my bed, we moved the newborn kittens
onto some old clothes in my closet, using an eyedropper
I fed the scrawny one. In the backyard, Sweetheart my white swan,
floated in a galvanized washtub. He, or was it a she? kept an eye out
for Bumpie our black cocker spaniel. Wearing a two piece sunsuit,
I was unselfconsciously happy, round and soft like the bunnies
in a wire cage beneath the gnarled apricot tree. I would climb that tree
to pick the sweetest fruit, the taste I have not been able to match.
I wonder if my grandchildren will ever know the taste of a tree ripened apricot
or feel the sticky juice dribble down their chin to land on their bare tummy
warmed by the sun. The Oakland Hills fire took the house, leaving our brick
chimney standing alone except for a white cement front step. A tree is so solid,
so stable, that’s what puzzled me, the trees of my childhood were gone.
- Color A Day #24 – Apricot (colornerd.wordpress.com)
