Middle House Review
Dianne Olsen "Dirty" "Abandoned"
Dirty
The whole of me is happy in the garden.
Soil smell drifts up,
brings something like
oxytocin to my brain cells,
I relax, smile, dig deeper.
I am covered in dirt:
ankles to knees,
even the folds of my socks
have dirt in them.
My butt – wet from sitting
in damp soil – never felt better.
Above my gardening gloves,
my arms up to my elbows and beyond
are dirty,
my skin is decorated with
sand grains,
a few leaf fragments,
an insect leg.
The garden is truly mine
when I’m dirty.
I am one with the soil and its parts.
I am absolutely beautiful.
Abandoned
Neither home nor haunted,
the house is merely history,
shutters blown away by winter winds,
gingerbread fretwork missing.
Oak branches sit in
u-shaped bends in the roof.
Blue wisteria begins its inexorable
annexation of the garage.
A dedicated weeping willow
sweeps the porch daily,
keeping in touch with lovers
who spent evenings on porch swings
making plans:
weddings, babies, grandbabies,
love everlasting.
Hydrangeas still bloom
by the front walk;
extravagant flowers cheer only
the firemen keeping watch
from the firehouse across the street.
The chief knows the house will
come down soon;
he suspects it will happen
when the hydrangeas stop blooming.
Bio:
Dianne Olsen is a poet, freelance writer, and garden consultant living in Massachusetts. She wrote the weekly “Valley Gardener” column for the Poughkeepsie (NY) Journal for four years in the mid-2000s. Now retired from a career as an environmental educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Putnam County, NY, she volunteers at a teen center, food pantry garden and summer camp. She has an MA in Environmental Studies from SUNY Empire State College. Her freelance work has been published by Taste of Home; poetry published in Colloquial Poetry; Isoacoustics; Mojave River Press and Review; Postcard Poems and Prose; and Writer’s Resist.