Edwin Returns To See His Mother

Edwin Returns To See His Mother
© Surazeus
2018 08 04

The way black storm clouds hang over low hills
of dry yellow grass to charge the blue air
with pungent scent of steel in gray rain drops
erases all details of human history
so truth is nothing more than silent trees
and dusty road winding toward the old house.

My mother wearing long black dress and boots
may still be in the kitchen at the stove
cooking mashed potatoes and apple pies
and telling me about her life in Sweden
before they sailed over the sea to Boston
and rode three covered wagons far to Utah.

I leap onto the cracked wood porch in time
to sit on the frail rocking chair that creaks
while rain drops patter on the crumbling roof
to wet the bones of her forgotten sorrow
since all the fresh scents of hot stove-cooked meals
dissipate through flash of electric fear.

Each time I ran out through the frail screen door
it clacked behind me as my boots hit dirt
and dust exploded as I ran through fields
to sparkling Green River with fishing pole
where I stood in the timeless river breeze
to catch pike and trout my mother would roast.

Moonlight gleamed through the lace window curtains
while we feasted on roast fish and drank cider,
then my father would sit by crackling hearth
and tell me about the large textile factory
in Malmo where he supervised the workers
making gloves, hats, and coats from cured cow leather.

Mormon missionaries knocked on his door
and told him about Prophet Joseph Smith
and the great wealth he could earn in America
so he converted to their honest faith
when they offered to send him on the boat
all expenses paid to heaven in Utah.

Now here we are in dusty paradise,
farming alfalfa in Green River, Utah,
deep in Desolation Canyon of hope,
far from religious wars burning in Sweden
and struggling to survive in the Waste Land
where thunderclouds crackle over dry hills.

The empty house moans secrets I forgot
as I rock on the porch in gusting wind
and smell sweet tang of rain soaking gold hills,
so I laugh when I see bulbous green frogs
emerging from puddles on muddy paths
to sing their chorus with the falling rain.

How endless seemed the hours when I was twelve
and helped my father farm desolate fields
by digging ditches channeling river flow
to water rows of alfalfa that glows
gold in the mute glare of indifferent sun
far away from the college halls of books.

While shoveling dirt under towering hills
that rang forever with crickets and frogs
I daydreamed I dug huge network of caves
deep into the mountains where slender elves
grow mushrooms, forge gold into harps and grails,
and fix diamonds on crowns everyone wears.

Eager to find my own way in the world,
and learn how to construct buildings with bricks,
I walked six hundred miles over three weeks,
past Salt Lake City where angel of gold
soars immobilized above the great temple,
to paradise in Boise, Idaho.

We are descended from the forest elves
who dwelled in the mountains of Gothaland,
my mother told me when I was a small boy,
so while I played in gold meadows of Utah
I dreamed about setting out on the quest
to find the Holy Grail in Fairy Land.

Instead I find myself in Idaho,
studying math and physics at the small college
where I meet the most beautiful young girl
while she studies history and poetry
in the large library on the third floor,
so every evening we share the small table.

I plan to marry her when I return,
but first I came home to see my sweet mother,
and eat her apple pie with cinnamon
that tingles sweet and juicy on my tongue
and wakens strange visions in dreamy eyes
of dancing around forest pools in starlight.