Garden In The Bathtub Legacy: Revolutionary Family History Prose

Maria Vogt or Weidt GEERDTS, early 1900s, by her chicken coop in Sheboygan, WisconsinThere is an old family history story that my Grandma Bertha Geerdts Kuhns used to tell me about her father’s mother, a little old immigrant German lady who lived in Sheboygan Wisconsin at the turn of the century. My Grandma Bertha said that this woman (Maria Vogt or Weidt Geerdts) had chicken coops, a garden, but what Grandma Bertha most remembered about Maria Geerdts’ house in Sheboygan is that her large clawfoot bathtub was never used for bathing.

Instead, it was always full of garden plants.
Plants in jetted bathtub, Nov 2018
Sometimes I wonder if my great-great Granny Geerdts is looking down on my giant jetted bathtub …
and smiling.

Cold May Day: Revolutionary Blogging Free Verse Lament Poem

May Day
always
was,
in every way,
bright and cheerful and
colored with blossoms
from our yard.

Roses.
Lilacs.
Dogwoods.
Camellias
Kornblumen.
Straw Flowers.
Daisies.
Periwinkle.
Rosemary.
Lavender.
Camomille.
Sage.
Mint.
Grape Hyacinths.
Sometimes even late tulips
and plum blossoms.

Full bouquets,
ding-dong-ditched
on doorsteps
for the neighborhood,
for children’s teachers
— piano, dance, acting, spiritual
and intellectual —
and scholastic staff.

Surprises
for them
and us.
Messages
of love
and remembrance
and appreciation.

But children grow up
and teachers grow old
and people move away
and on,
and invitations
for the next generation
are forgotten,
and friendships
are dissolved
or wither
and die
from lack of care
or abuse.

This year,
our last here,
blossoms are few.
There is a cold,
constant rain,
and even if there were flowers,
there would be few to
grant bouquets to.

Sorrow permeates
this day,
our last May Day
here in this
botanical wonderland,
where everything grows
and blooms
and thrives
except cacti
and prickly pear.
Ironic that,
as our time here
dies,
Spring is so slow
to arrive.

I would take a photo
of the late dogwood blossoms
and the just-emerging,
faintly-scented lilacs,
but my battery
just died.