Sometime during a long week of rain last June, my grandmother came to terms with the fact that her geraniums wouldn’t survive the summer. In her day, her backyard produce and labor fed her children through the year—raspberries, cherry tomatoes, and pole beans gave way to hours spent watering, weeding, and eventually, harvesting. A depleted row of lettuce that needed replanting could reappear in three days. Raspberries weren’t to be picked, but nudged gently, only to fall in the palm of your hand. Plums became desirable only when the robins decided it was their turn, too. Time passed, but she could count on the dirt and the sun.
It took my grandmother three weeks to acknowledge she was no longer able to sustain her geraniums—a notoriously durable flower in any season, but particularly the heat of summer. One afternoon on her deck, I noticed a batch of artificial flowers coexisting in real dirt among the few surviving geraniums. It turns out, my grandmother had spent her morning at Dollar Tree buying imposter flowers of which she was genuinely proud and pleased with her efforts.
Emily Dickinson once wrote, “Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.” So many of the pieces in this issue are suspended in a time and place before the sun makes itself completely visible. They’ve found ways to sustain both the loss and replacement of flowers which will no longer bloom or die despite perfect conditions. In a year of perpetual unknowing and loss, they are resilient in their ability to acknowledge the need for celebrations, however small. We hope you find as much to be discovered in them as we have. We hope they open every door.
With warmth,
Hannah Newman & Jesse Ewing-Frable
Sweet Tree Review