Some Wildflower In My Heart by Jamie Langston Turner

Author:Jamie Langston Turner [Turner, Jamie Langston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042000, FIC026000
ISBN: 9781441204424
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

18

A Time Appointed

When I think of Birdie Freeman today, my mind is often filled with analogies from the world of science. I envision a microscopic organism surrounding and engulfing another. I imagine the slow seepage of colorless gases into what was once a vacuum. I think of the laws of thermodynamics concerning actions and reactions, of the effect of heat upon ingots of metal, of the principle of water displacement. I am reminded of the productive work of sunlight within green plants, of the irrepressible power of seeds, of the springing forth of flowers in the most hostile of soils—in the forest gloom, in the desert, upon a rocky mountainside. I see purple and yellow crocuses bursting through the crust of snow.

And without fail, when I think of Birdie, my thoughts turn to the wildflower. I have in my possession a book titled Wild Flowers in South Carolina by a botanist named Wade Batson. Within its pages, the edges of which begin to give evidence of many turnings, are pictures and descriptions of over two hundred wildflowers native to our state, including those with euphonious names such as Star of Bethlehem, Honey-cup, and Fairy Lily, as well as those of harsher designation: Wild-Man-of-the-Earth, Devil’s Darning Needle, and Beggar’s Lice. I bought the book at the Derby Public Library Used Book Sale after the incident that I shall now set down in writing.

It occurred on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving as I was gathering my books after my piano lesson with Birdie. By this time I was playing songs in the third book of The Music Tree series. Though Birdie had suggested from time to time that we omit certain songs, for it was her opinion that I could move far more quickly into more difficult music, I insisted upon studying the books methodically, page by page, even writing in my answers for every notation review, clapping out the practice rhythms, and playing each warm-up exercise on my piano at home. On this particular Tuesday I had performed four simple numbers: “Irish Tune,” “If Kangaroos Danced,” “Grasshoppers,” and “Cobbler, Cobbler.” As always, Birdie had poured upon me undiluted praise. “You’ve got so much talent!” she told me. “And what’s more, you practice! I wish all my other pupils were as faithful as you.”

No doubt Birdie had observed me at each piano lesson studying the cross-stitched poem on the wall, and very likely she understood that my interest was in the poem itself, or perhaps in poetry in general, more than in the design and craftsmanship of Mickey’s handiwork. As she had informed us earlier, Mickey had used no pattern but had merely begun stitching the poem in a script of his own devising, after which he had begun creating a border and a complementary scene of trees and flowers. Although neatly—perhaps even admirably—executed, it was no artistic masterpiece. The poem was not a profound statement nor a lengthy one:

Gifts From the Wildwood

I know not how to capture

This fragrant wildwood’s rapture,

The magic of

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