My Mother's Earth

My mother has a tree in the yard she calls her electric bee tree.
She hovers around it, flits from the pink dahlias to the English roses
to the black-eyed susans that run wild along the fence.

She hums as she works. The flowers strain toward her quivering notes,
stretch out their petals as she says, “My garden looks beautiful this year.”
My mother brings growth from the wintry earth,
coaxes the daffodils to take their first timid steps and tell their friends
they’ve seen the sun, though it’s February in upstate New York.
She does all of this, my mother.
Runner beans, tomatoes, peppers green and yellow squash,
hyacinths and sunflowers, hearts that bleed and chrysanthemums,
wisteria that crawls and trumpet vines that launch themselves towards the sky,
bulbs and seeds and butterfly plants and
the electric bee tree.