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Efflorescence, a guest poem by Dawn Marar
By mickielynn on 2013-07-08 15:11:43
Today Waging Peace would like to share a poem by author Dawn Marar. Dawn defines her literary work this way: Dawn
Marar'’s publishing credits include fiction and nonfiction. In 2012, a work of creative nonfiction was nominated for a
Pushcart Prize. She lives in Delmar, NY. Efflorescence was a finalist in the contest for the 2011 War and Peace issue of the
Chautauqua Literary Journal and was published in that journal. We're glad to be able to share her moving work with all of
you. [caption id="attachment_4626" align="alignnone" width="600"]
lw Star Magnolia, photo by Dan Charuk, Taken on May 6, 2009, Bowmanville, Ontario, CA Star Magnolia, photo by Dan
Charuk, Taken on May 6, 2009, Bowmanville, Ontario, CA.[/caption] Efflorescence The tree in bloom takes the woman
hostage, Drugging her with its colossal powder puff. Peaking star magnolia tepals* morph into bathroom tissue of a high
school unspooling. But it’s too early in the spring for a lark usually reserved for the coach’s lot anyway. Soon any trace of
brilliance will vanish and the woman will sink back into stacks of books secured under the watchful eye of the PATRIOT
Act, buried in dust mites. The petals flutter, surrendering to Nature, despite a few that cling as if hot glue gunned after a
dogged winter. Now the woman sees scraps of bandages calling up wounds of the earlier Desert Storm waged in our name
against people whose names we can’t pronounce. Streaming live public radio announces the Nagasaki official’s U.S. trip,
and before her very eyes the tepals transform into paper cranes. By turns, limp, the tepals invoke the down of goose feathers.
One rumpled past bloom stands out, a dove. The woman searches for more symbols of salvation. Instead, the detritus of
shredded paper towels, remnants of cleaning rags, crumpled pages, bone white teeth flood her mind. While the blossoms on
this perennial formed, reports from Ramadi bombarded the home front. She taps, What flowers in Baghdad this week,
positions the cursor, depresses the mouse. Send Now, a missive to the gap-toothed boy who mowed her lawn, off fighting in
Iraq. The flowers’ heady fragrance slips through a crack in the window, smacks of a wake, piercing dust carried by April
winds that permeates the air of her colonial. [caption id="attachment_4627" align="alignnone" width="600"]
La
"Where have all the flowers
gone?" photo by Liu Xu and Hyun Yi, 2011[/caption] She walks outside, picks a tepal and raises it to her lips. For a
moment, the woman, who scrubs fruit free of pesticides, feels liberated and emboldened. To the Iraqi people--not all of
whom feel liberated and only some of whom feel emboldened. Then, the stench of industries west of her land blows east,
reminding her no chemical weapons were found. Her face burns as Bush declares war upon the world. The following
morning she awakes to the rumbling highway department contraption grinding brush. She grabs the camera to capture any
remaining flowers. The tepals pale under cloud cover. Green buds assert themselves. The woman stands beneath the
canopy and pinches the rubbery soft skin freshly fallen from a branch. It is cool, damp, and surprisingly firm. Misshapen
now, the tepals no longer resemble their nascent form as they approached the pinnacle of their days. * Tepal ; one of the
divisions of a flower perianth, especially one that is not clearly differentiated into petals and sepals, as in lilies and tulips.
[caption id="attachment_4628" align="alignleft" width="600"]
l®.Tepals, botanical image, labeled photo by Midy Liou [UBC Biology 324 Blog: Lab 8] Tepals, botanical image, labeled
photo by Midy Liou [UBC Biology 324 Blog: Lab 8][/caption][Editor's note:] A little more information for the botanically
interested: Efflorescence is the process of flowering or blooming. Also defined as an example or result of growth and
development. Botanical definition: A state or time of flowering; anthesis. A gradual process of unfolding or developing. The
highest point; the culmination. The time and process of budding and unfolding of blossoms.
