ears & hearts

{shadow on the garage door.}

lilacs, remixed.

first night in the new house;
midnight is rainy grasses & the sounds
of weeping birch-braids tangled,

& the bursting lilac tree –

today my mother & uncle
admired these blossoms, called
them lai-luks, just like those under

mama’s window; and the sound

blooms at the root of their tongues;
those two syllables: lai – luk
& i hear my baba’s left an inheritance

because i can hear her voice again

like a persistent pulsar, i can hear her
voice in the air through
that long ai: lai-luk – lai-la-lai-luk

shaping the earth through sound;

a memory like a seed pod
bursting forth, her voice shapes
the earth, the garden of poppies roses cucumbers

in the loam of my cochlea,

& that sweet cool wrinkled skin of summer,
voice like water ripples in the tin washtub
my cousin & i are shelling peas

plink plink plink

& she says, come take some lai-luks, girls
we watch her strong legs under the flowery gusts
of her skirt, veins of periwinkle blue

warm skin flowing so soft under earth

caked to her hands, hands overflowing
with lilacs in little twig bundles, wrapped
in a washcloth given to me as her voice

waves goodbye & i still smell the lilacs,
still hear the lilacs in her voice sounding
into the years of mud & loam &

the dusty brown ghosts of lilacs resonate

& regenerate in the voice of my uncle, my mother
myself we are flowers, we are the roots
that dig down, absorb the sound &

grow from that earth, she is

the earth now, her hands are full of lilacs,
her hands moved her heart, pushed her voice
sounding like the soft remnant of a star

in the middle of thousand purple ears of lilacs

her voice whispers through the earth
now a live little pulse moving through
everything & the seeds of sound scattered

in my voice & i hear i say lai-luks in my hands
my voice my (h)ear(t) --