By Sam Ambler
When I was seven,
I took the hand
of my boyfriend Bobby
and led him
under the mulberry tree.
I asked him there
to marry me
and when he said yes
I kissed him
on the lips,
shaking with joy
and delight
in the unspoken forbidden.
My first boy kiss.
When I was seventeen,
I was depressed.
I lay silently
one grey winter day
under the mulberry tree
gazing up
into nothingness
through bleak
empty branches.
I stayed there
when it began to rain,
stayed all night long
hoping to freeze
or to drown.
When I was thirty-seven,
I awoke
under the mulberry tree
from the long haze
that engulfed me
after I dove
into the bottle
when my mother passed
from this life
into the beyond.
Dried red juice
from the mulberries
stained my skin
in rivulets of tears.
When I was fifty-seven,
I turned inward
toward the voice
I could hear most clear
under the mulberry tree.
When I made myself
still,
I felt the boundaries
of my self grow
dancing to the colored
crystal song
of Spirit
leading me toward joy.
The quiet kiss of God.
When I am seventy-seven,
I will rejoice
under the mulberry tree
in half a life
spent with one man,
my heart-love,
my husband,
my trial and my reprieve,
my nonpareil,
my beloved Ed.
Together
we have walked
well-tended garden paths
and grimy city streets.
When I am eighty-seven
(or maybe some years more),
and my time comes
to join the host
on the other side,
take my body,
this vessel I have loved,
and burn it
down to ash,
crush the bones
into silky silt,
the human sand,
and scatter what’s left of me
under the mulberry tree.
Sam Ambler’s writing has been published in Christopher Street, The James White Review, City Lights Review Number 2, Nixes Mate Review, and Visitant, among others. He won the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s 6th Annual Poetry Contest.
He earned a BA in English, specializing in creative writing of poetry, from Stanford University. He delivered singing telegrams and sang with the Temescal Gay Men’s Chorus in Berkeley and the Pacific Chamber Singers in San Francisco. He has worked in nonprofit theater at Berkeley Rep, Geffen Playhouse, Actors’ Equity, and The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Now retired, he lives in California with his husband, visual artist Edward L. Rubin.