Faith Kaltenbach
My mother’s happy childhood
in a protected country arboretum
left her loving the green earth
and, more-or-less,
believing in flower fairies.
She told us their stories,
‘of course this is just pretend,’
while she fashioned flamenco
dancers from hollyhocks,
sipped nectar from honeysuckle,
nibbled sour oxalis leaves
and, at the end of haircut day, wound
our auburn curls around branches
so birds could line their nests.
With jar lids from her kitchen
we made little water pools
beside twig houses
we built in secret places,
sure some grateful creature
would stay the night.
She inoculated us a little
from the coldness of the world.
Faith Kaltenbach is 81 years old, a busy grandmother, gardener, reader and writer. She has lived half her life in Pennsylvania and half in New Mexico.