“A Letter”: Spring 2020 Ekphrastic Competition Winner
BY LOWELL HUTCHINSON ’21
Congratulations to Lowell Hutchinson, the winner of our first ever ekphrastic competition. Thank you to everyone who submitted!
“A Letter” was written in response to Flower Girl, by resident artist Sydney Peng ’22. Lowell’s piece will also be included in our upcoming Spring 2020 print issue.
Dear Mahoney’s Garden Center,
I am writing in regard to some forget-me-not seeds that I purchased a year ago. I followed the directions on the back of the periwinkle-colored packet exactly: 6 inches deep, moist earth (near a body of water), and in the shade. I planted the seeds with my mother in 6-inch divots around the edge of the small pond next to my house. I thought they’d be done by July; my mother figured they’d survive until October when the frost begins to settle in.
The forget-me-nots started to sprout in April. I know this because it was around the same time that my mother started crying regularly, and I didn’t want to watch her cry. So, I’d go out by the pond and watch the forget-me-nots. They grew slowly — like a disease. Tiny green ovals balanced on white hair-like stems: they looked luminescent against the mud. They were so tiny, so delicate and fragile. I should’ve gotten a sturdier plant.
My sister had a talent for picking out just the right plant for each occasion. She’d often return from your store with the perfect texture and color. Pastel tulips for Easter; sunflowers for my mother’s birthday; and tiny yellow flowers for everything else. She really loved those little flowers. I’d considered getting those, but I didn’t know their name, but then I wondered if I just couldn’t remember the name, and the fact I couldn’t remember the name set me on edge because I should be able to remember. I thought I had written it down at one point, but the paper had gotten lost in the hurricane mess that is our kitchen. I wished I could just ask her what their name was — perhaps that small remembrance would push her back to before her memory dissolved.
My sister was particularly obsessed with the delicacy of flowers: the fragility of their petals, the shortness of their life. She was fascinated by floral rebirth — that they were able to die and grow back forever — a constant circle of death and birth and death and birth. Years ago, we used to play in the woods — I would try to climb the trees, and she would pick the petals off of wildflowers. I figured she had a crush on some boy in her class and was attempting to use floral magic to figure out if her love was reciprocated. But, one time, after she dropped the naked stem, she raised her young grey eyes to me and said: “Robin, I’m so excited die.”
Last year, I went to your store to purchase those baby yellow flowers for my sister. And while I was looking at the seed packets, I read “forget-me-not.” Forget-me-not. I felt the tiniest shred of hope pierce my heart: these seeds just might fix her. Maybe, through the magic of botany, my sister would live a life she could remember before she died. So, I got them. I planted them. Their green leaves poked up in April; their baby blue heads surrounded the pond in July; and my sister died in October.
So, I’m writing to ask: what is the name of those little yellow flowers that my sister loved so much?
Because they sure as fuck weren’t forget-me-nots.
Sincerely,
Robin Krozak