Meditation on the Southern Magnolia

by Lauren Kalstad, on forgiveness

I’ve arrived at the place where I am both daughter and mother.

like the heron’s gentle landing on the face of a pond, feet firmly in soft

underwater earth, beak tipped toward the sun, split impossibly between

two elements. as months begin to take root, I loosen the knot of myself

as daughter and tilt my chin to the moon that is mother with my whole heart

petaled & yawning like the magnolia in late spring – bright mouths open

singing to the sky. I am mother to a daughter and she unfurls sweetly

to the warm draw of day but when dusk pulls its curtain she blooms

in reverse – a quiet curl. I am the creature who still marvels that her skin

was formed in my skin & while I know that the blossom of the magnolia

is smooth like flesh, I’ve seen my grandmother paint each bowl-faced

flower into life on canvas with only a dance of hands, but she flew out

of this world on wings of her own making. too quick. my mother is now

only a mother in this life, the daughter in her wandering ghost-heavy

at the heels of my grandmother somewhere only imagined. the magnolia

is older than even the bees, the rich pollen eaten up by beetles then moved

with a hush. it’s true the women in our family leave wounds in their wake

& I’ve watched my mother, her body still burdened with the tired pollination

from one budding generation to the next. when magnolia seeds fall from

their cone they hang by a silken thread, a life tethered to a life. the small

hands of my daughter reach for the burled branches and her fingers

trace each leaf eaten up with rust – she is green as new growth.

like the magnolia, I want to show my mother that we too can shed

beautifully. the forgiveness was planted in my core as she pulled me fresh

to her chest so many years ago, a fruit still unbruised. and in the dawn

of this sowing season, we learn what we must bury in order to bloom.