Forsythias

My birch-swinger friend didn't start out that way: he began as a city boy. City flora is a bit different from country flora, but that doesn't mean that one might wax less poetical about it:

"...When I think of spring, I think of a few things. I
think of baseball. I am sure I could find some good [poetry] there but I
didn't know if you'd like them or your readers would as much. I think of
dirt. Digging in it, to be specific. I didn't have a lot of luck there.
I think of flowers, of course, but that is just too broad a subject so
I went with the flowers that say spring to me the most, forsythia. I
had no real appreciation for them when I was a kid, or so I thought.
But this poet reminded me that I did as I had more than one Forsythia
Fortress myself back in the day(s). Thanks for inspiring me to look. It was neat to figure out that this shrub has been a part of me for all this time.

FORSYTHIA FORTRESS
Tenth Poem of Merit

Yes, I remember
My forsythia fortress
A summer sanctuary
That berry bakery
And many muddy smiles.

Occupied for hours
In a heavenly haven
Always wildly wondering
About the planes passing
And worldly wiles.

So many feelings
In the damp daylight
Feet feeling fingers
Drawing vain Van Gogh's
To rhythm and rhyme.

How can I forget
So many mysteries
The lifting laughter
That privileged privacy
In my forsythia fortress.

-Brooke Umstead Good, Ocean View, Delaware

(This was printed in a book called Windows, Rainbows, and Salt Spray II,
the Anthology of the Ocean City Poetry Chapter and the Ocean City
Museum Society. This one was published in 1985.)"

***

I will always associate forsythias with my Danish grandma and love them because of that. She lived in the city and had a huge, rank bush practically flush with her front porch. How I enjoyed holing up with my little brother behind its densness, shaded by stray, arching branches laden with gold blooms.