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| Jack's Wake Robin trillium purchased last spring from Telly's Greenhouse in Troy |
Unbeknownst
to me, my friend Jack planted trillium last spring from Cottage Lake Gardens in
Washington State, and our local Telly’s Greenhouse in Troy.
With tender care, Jack planted the seedlings under a
black walnut tree, sheltered between his garden shed and the Clinton River
Trail. A hopeful patron to natural beauty and the eye of its beholder, this April,
Jack began scouting to spy the pleasure of his investment.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Jack, Sunday, April 25, on a
saunter of my country roads, the first trillium blossom surprised me in the
timber along Stoney Creek. The three, white petals usually appear around
Mother’s Day.
I learned this fact upon my family’s introduction to Addison
Township in spring, 1989. Back then, this native species of the family
Melanthiaceae blanketed the forest floors in our little patch of the world.
I also discovered red blooms in the windrows of our serpentine
road, an old cow path. Pioneers of the area knew the red trillium as Wake
Robin, analogous to our State bird.
Sadly, each spring as subdivisions arise around us, the
deer population grows and the trillium diminish. And I’ve yet to find the lone
red flower at the foot of a bank west of us.
On schedule, Jack sent an email that same evening of
April 25, addressed to our writer’s group named Leaps. Mind, Jack’s the veteran
cowhand who casts his lasso every Sunday to gather our submissions for
critique.
“Faith,” he wrote with a photo
attached. “That's what you practice when you put things in the ground. Almost
one year ago I planted five trilliums. Here is the first evidence that there is
life below the leaf mold. Product of the same faith that produces when you
plant on a page. Who'll be sowin' seed tomorrow?”
“This is remarkable,” I replied. “I saw my first
blooming trillium a few hours ago.”
Thus commenced Jack’s email reports.
May 1: “I should tell you we
have foliage of two more trillium.”
May 2: “The trilliums increase.
We have three to celebrate now, with hope for more.”
May 3: “Hope you're all enjoying
the rain. The trillium are.”
May 6: Jack phoned. “Iris Lee,
four trillium are up!”
In the midst of our enthusiasm, Jack paused. “I think
I planted six seedlings.”
Yes, this is serious. You see, Jack’s a
retired driver of eighteen-wheelers, musician, storyteller, and poet who’s
learned the succession and significance of such delicate, enduring, and serene
matters of the human experience.
While we rejoiced, I said, “Do you remember my
favorite book about the history and spirit of storytelling?”
“It’s on my desk before me.”
“I know there’s several passages that apply to what
we’re experiencing now. I’ll email them later.”
In Jack’s call for submissions at the conclusion of
Mother’s Day, he emailed, “According to Ruth Sawyer in The Way of the Storyteller: ‘During these early racial beginnings of
storytelling, story was not distinct from poetry.’”
Please know, dear Reader, our stories of faith, hope, and love in our modern day are not distinct from poetry. And like trillium, poetry is perennial.
