Wild Onions, (edited for dVerse)

[I don't like to start with disclaimers or explanations, but I feel the need this time to introduce this poem. Some of you have read this one before--I wrote it a few weeks ago for a different poetry prompt community. Forgive me for reposting (I have, hopefully, made a few edits that improved the piece), but one of my friends commented on the original post that she enjoyed my use of enjambment. Since enjambment is what we are after here in this prompt, I automatically thought of this poem. And I also think it meets the criterion of including disparate subjects. Anyway, here goes, for my new friends at dVerse. Join in!]

Wild Onions

Traveling south down the interstate

I passed the mowers mowing,

laying low the overgrowth

along the shoulder of the road.

The sweet smell of cut

grass was mixed with wild onion

which grows in patches here.

Strange how memory resides

in our bodies, not only in our minds;

our very senses pave a road

into the past. I remembered

how, as a kid, I loved

to find these patches,

would crush the thin

leaves in my teeth and wince

at the bitter-ripe taste. But mostly

I remembered a later time,

when I would crank up

the old red Massey Ferguson

to mow the church yard,

twenty sloping acres of grass

and wild onion patches. And you

would come along to ride

beside me, standing on the sideboard

with the dignity of a sentry,

proud to be with me

and I with you. We went

up and down in long

passes, the roar of the rattling

diesel making speech impossible.

Now, for other reasons

speech is impossible,

and I know the meaning

of the words cried out

by David the brokenhearted:

“My son! My son!”

* The last stanza makes use of a story from the Judeo-Christian tradition concerning the Israelite prophet/king David and his son, Absalom. Absalom revolted against his father, and ended up being killed in battle by one of David’s generals. When David heard the news of Absalom’s death, he “wept; and as he went, thus he said, ‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!’”