Through the Screen Door

Coming in from the garden tonight,

my red garden clogs on the deck,

my face, arms and hands 

covered in fine black silt,

I stood at the sink running warm water 

from a tap and watched graying water

swirl down the silver circled drain.

Thoughts of the old pump at the edge of the porcelain sink at the farm flowed from memory.

It was a cast iron pump on the small counter to the right just inside the screen door.

After he left his coverall's outside,

Dad came in to wash up for meals, 

and at the end of his farming day.

He pumped cold water from the cistern, 

a splash at a time, into a basin in the sink, 

tossing gray soapy water outside when he was done.

Coming in from the field, Dad was covered

in fine black prairie soil from his long day 

plowing down a spent crop in fall - or weeds sprouting in spring - 

on the broad flat acres pioneered by his father.

His forehead, still white, 

where sun was thwarted by his cap.

Owl eyes where his glasses had perched on his nose.

Streaks of dirt in the creases and lines in his skin.

Are these memories accurate in their detail?

I can't go back to any of those days to find out.

We all remember details a little differently.

What I do know is that

today my skin looked a little like my dad's.

I only used a little hand garden fork 

to turn over the soil,

keeping stray weeds from the fence

on the small patch of black dirt,

while his equipment was for a bigger purpose.

Washing fine black west coast soil 

from my face, arms and hands,

I took a short trip through the screen door

to the old pump standing at the edge of memory.

"True nostalgia is an ephemeral 
composition of disjointed memories."

~ Florence King