Braiding Sweetgrass with You

On reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, 2013

I am trying to remember.

The grass that we gathered along the fenceline

Between the lane and the garden

I am trying to remember

The garden where we fell in love with the mysteries of plum trees and green growing things;

Where, creeping between cornstalks,

We heard silver-green leaves whisper like aunties

Who huffed and did not wish to be disturbed,

Their conversations meant only for each other’s ears

Those tall and tasseled presences shushing us back outside the gate

That creaked like an unoiled door between us and everything we loved and could not know.

I am trying to remember the fragrance of grass when we lifted it to our noses,

The bundles warm and damp in our hands,

Thick as the braid in your grandmother’s hair;

Then the two of us, forehead to forehead

You pulling gently to keep the braids tight,

My fingers separating the bond between us into three:

Earth, Spirit, and Sky;

Weaving plait over plait over plait,

Then helping you weave your skein in your turn

Breathing the sweetness of grass, and the world, and each other,

The two of us whispering (as the corn whispered)

Braided like sweetgrass, together.

I seem, in my age, to have forgotten if any of this could possibly be true

Or if ever the two of us, leaning forehead to forehead together

Taught our fingers to be nimble and wise.

I walk in a warm August wind through a garden full of whispers

Hoping they will teach this old woman’s heart to remember

The sweetness of braiding sweetgrass with you.

Age and the fragrance of sweetgrass

Will do that, you know.

~ by karenmcl on August 18, 2020.