Margo

Can she be planted where the corner of the garden’s rocks are down?

I would like bleeding heart or fuschia to redden the banks

In their brief seasons. Rain, rain, Irish rain.

Diamonds on the stamens when the sun goes blind.

And sweet pea, pale pink, pale blue, perfume.

Please, if you can, make sure there is an ash tree, young and tight and green.

And bring back the smell of turf for the burning. Of her. Of me.

Copyright © 2021 by Fanny Howe. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 3, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“This poem was written for Margo, a very original person who died recently and lived most of her life in Massachusetts. Her most recent collection was published by Pressed Wafer, and she wrote her poems all over letters and papers but managed to remain under-known. This poem was a way of speaking about hers and my strange connection: we both, unknown to each, lived in the same house many years ago on the Irish Sea. We only found out by chance. But this was the fact that bound us, a coincidence really, otherwise called an epiphany. We both loved Ireland, its literature, music, and people, and shared each of them. The poem touches on the pieces of the natural world, its colors, its perfumes, its sounds, and finally its burning when all is said and done. It’s a poem of hope for what is not seen.”
—Fanny Howe