Shriveled and rusted, my mother saves the lost, reviving darkly spotted plants with paltry buds or blooms beyond hope. At the end of a season, she digs up blood-red geraniums we planted for my father, brings them home, repots them, freeing their bound roots. She prunes and deadheads, placing each stub tenderly in the sun-crammed altar of a crowded bay window. What patience and faith it takes to revive the dying, care for the barely living. What wizardry to transform crinkled stems or yellowed leaves into bright mauve and wine-colored spots of color like gemstones bursting out of dark folds of Earth’s winter crust. /////
Jo Pitkin holds a B.A. in Creative Writing and Literature from Kirkland College and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, The Measure, and four full-length collections: Cradle of the American Circus: Poems from Somers, New York; Commonplace Invasions; Rendering; and Village: Recession. She is the editor of the anthology Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community and associate editor of its companion anthology, Lost Orchard: Nonfiction from the Kirkland College Community. A freelance educational writer, Jo creates English language arts materials for Kindergarten through Grade 12 students and teachers. She also works as a teaching artist at The Poetry Barn. Her poem “Geraniums” is from a manuscript that she is currently writing about the unique lake community where she grew up.
Author photo by Howard Goodman.
Lightwood 