In Your Own Words: ‘Weekends at Aunt Gwen’s’

Those of us writing through Dave Malone’s Tornado Drill for my 3-week course In Your Own Words are sharing poems.

Here’s mine for session 3, written about my dad, who thought mesquite trees were the prettiest trees in the world.

Graveside

It’s the best tree in the world,
you said
of the thorny, trashy weed posing as a tree.

Last spring mesquite all over town threw a green riot,
their fern leaves shaded me during outdoor yoga,
before you skipped town.

J. Frank Dobie wrote he wanted one at his grave.

And if I’d asked you, your eyes would have lit wide
as mesquite pods. But I don’t need a tree to remind me
how deep your roots sank, spread for miles,
sucked every drop of moisture from here to Fisher County,
your West Texas dirt beneath my every clean nail.

Every day when I go to work out, I park
under the shade of a mesquite tree.

– Megan Willome

P.S. My poem for week 2, “Sky Over Clouds,” is featured at Nan Henke’s website, with her painting “Big Sky.” She is the painter I collaborated with for our Crossroads art show in April.