Wild Onions

For Three Word Wednesday. Prompt words dignity, lacerate, ripe. 

Wild Onions

Traveling south down the interstate

I passed the mowers mowing,

laying down 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. The thought

lacerates my deepest self, 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!’"