Coming to Terms

Crown Cinquain: "Cinquefoil"

CINQUEFOIL

The cinquefoil is the symbol of the beloved daughter, as the leaves bend over to cover the flower when it rains, as a mother would protect her daughter. - Cable Natural History Museum, Cable, Wisconsin

For Caitlin


Each spring she'd pick an early pee-the-bed
for me and say,
This for you, for Mother's Day.
I'd put it in a vase, though it was dead,
and praise its droopy yellow head.
 
Then later, it was Loves me, loves me not,
for daisies know
more than a sprig of mistletoe,
or mothers who, it seems, know diddly-squat.
At least that's what I thought she thought.
 
And when her lilac love had passed away
one winter, she
said it with roses, gracefully;
came home, crossed out her summer wedding day,
chopped off her hair. Faded to grey.
 
How can a mother's store of moss and cress
soften the hell
of marigold and asphodel?
Can timid snowdrops make a loss hurt less?
Often no. Maybe. Yes.
 
It's time and thyme we'll need; the flowering reed;
black poplar, white.
Cactus. Yarrow. Love outright.
The weeping willow and the wishing weed.
Those dandelions, gone to seed.