Hope Anita Smith

Hosted by Cara at Ooh...Books!

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My sister discovered this poet about a year ago and treated me to a copy of her book Mother Poems. All the poems in the collection revolve around a central theme: the death of a parent. Some are written from the viewpoint of a child, others as an adult thinking back on what was or could have been. All are heart-breakingly poignant.

Duped, which my sister featured on her blog last April, is my favorite. The one I've included here runs a close second.

Constructing Trees

Hope Anita Smith

I could feel it coming.

Like wild horses galloping toward water,

I could feel Christmas coming to me.

My mom and I would bring it

up from the basement.

Ornaments, holiday decorations, and

our tree,

lying dead in its coffin,

its epitaph on the lid.

No "R.I.P." here;

instead

"A.R.,"

"Assembly Required."

We grew our tree,

my mother and I,

from the base to the tree topper.

We raised the tall pole, and I held it

with two hands

while my mother wrestled

the green-tipped branches

into the green ring around the base,

and then we worked our way up,

matching the color tips to the ring colors

around the pole:

red, yellow, blue, black, brown, orange, white,

and another color that had long since

disappeared.

If we counted the rings,

our tree was nine years old.

It took some time, making a tree.

Every year, it got a little harder.

The colors became fainter.

But we didn't care.

I marveled that we were doing a thing

only God could do.

We were making a tree.

We dressed it in colored lights, ornaments,

and silver strands of tinsel.

When we were through,

we would stand back and admire it.

And right before our eyes,

like Geppetto's Pinocchio,

it became real.

I build trees all the time now.

Memory trees.

I start at the base,

my earliest memory,

and work my way up.

Hang moments with my mom in my mind.

Some of them real, some imagined.

All of them shining.