Sweet Bay Magnolia

It almost seems patronizing to the earth when you pat down the dirt after planting something. As if to say “there there, you’re fine, nothing worth getting yourself spun up about” immediately after violating it with sharp instruments specifically designed to penetrate it, reshape and otherwise change it into something we prefer it to be over what it was in the first place.

Sure, we are just planting a tree. It could have generated this as an eventual outcome on its own of course, but our human needs trump that of the earth always and forever. I shake my head and try to claw my way out of this intrusive and negative headspace because there is work to be done.

Sweet bay magnolia. It’s a tough tree. I like to use its lemon scented flowers as a subtle garnish on a fresh summer salad. In full maturity it will support a tire swing or even a tree house. Where this tree will stand, I want only joy for a wonder filled child. I want that child to grow and smile from the porch while they watch their children use it as a point of cultivation for magic and

imagination.

I watch her go from patting the dirt down to closing her fist around it. Her knuckles stick out while the loose granules under her become tightly packed. One of her manicured nails pulls away and the tip sticks out from the dirt.

Only the beauty of the creative force of nature could do more than just mask the poison we buried under that tree. Only that beauty could turn something so hateful into a fuel that has the potential to be a catalyst for so much good to take root.

He hurt her. He violated her. He turned her into something he preferred her to be over what she was in the first place.

He turned the once rich soil of our lives together into scorched earth. I needed to till what was left before I could help us start over.

He didn’t know I was there. He didn’t see me when I dropped my shovel down on the base of his skull. He didn’t register pain yet as I brought it down again across his face. His neck. He was already gone when I started to reshape him.

Sweet bay magnolia has a number of cultivars. We chose the emerald tower. It can grow upwards of twenty feet and six to eight feet wide. Although there are types that grow much taller (the Henry Hicks for example, can grow up to forty feet), the romance of the name was a selling point, and we are nothing if not romantics. It’s also an evergreen and she always loved the idea of the resiliency that represents. It prefers moist, acidic, nutrient rich soil. This is the only place he can be that he will not be poison.

She always held a quiet resentment for my disinterest in her gardening hobby. I rarely lifted a finger to so much as water the windowsill herbs while she was left to care for everything on her own. I don’t think she expected me to adopt her passion, but I can only assume it annoyed her that I was quick to reap the benefits of her sweat and dirty hands for cooking, photo backdrops or otherwise showing off the property to friends without ever actually offering a contribution to the cause. At most I would offer to pick up supplies in my travels knowing it would lead to her enjoying a quiet Sunday.

But for every feeling of resentment there was a smiling eye roll of “oh you,” an endearment like a mother letting a kid off from chores to run off into a sun filled afternoon while she did the adult work.

I had no idea there were so many cutting tools a person could use in the pursuit of gardening. Garden scissors, secateurs, garden knives, brush hooks, hedge shears and loppers. A lot of them have small parts, springs and bolts. It was hard to clean the blood out of it all. I realized I didn’t know the correct place for each one to hang in our basement workshop and I didn’t want to mess up the system. I stood them all up along the side of the plastic stand up wash basin and watched the brown water slowly roll off down the drain.

Whether anyone admits it or not, everyone who plants a tree does it with the proud wonder and curiosity of a soon to be parent. You find yourself imagining a future for it, the greatness it can bring to others. You can put aside everything you’ve done wrong and let this one thing be done right.

I reach into the dirt and wrap my hand around hers. I feel our rings scrape together. A part of me wishes he could still be conscious down there so he could hear the metal on metal of wounded but unbroken love. I hope he feels the dirt tighten around the ruined pieces of his body. I hope he feels the hungry advance of the root system of that sweet bay magnolia as it slowly reaches towards what is left of him.

I close my eyes and imagine the lemon, peppery aroma of its flower while I arrange it on a small salad plate. There is no reason dinner shouldn’t be as aesthetic as it is delicious.

I smile at her with tight lips through the blur of my tired wet eyes. I breathe out a long sigh and let go of every aching muscle and she lets a laugh crack through her trembling jaw because she knows she has finally taught me the fundamental goodness of her beloved hobby. She laughs and laughs and rests her dirt and blood covered cheek against mine, because she can finally see that I know.

I know there is no better feeling than pitching in on a hard day's work.