Kimberlyn Blum-Hyclak

In the Garden of Life and Death: A Mother and Daughter Walk is a collection of poetry by Kimberlyn Blum-Hyclak that tells the story of the poet's experiences with her young daughter's leukemia and her mother's cancer journeys. The eighty-five poems are all free verse using simple lyrical language -- except for the cancer terminology, which becomes its own code -- that particularizes a labyrinth of complex emotions and experiences. Blum-Hyclak's garden imagery and her sustained religious faith bind the collection together as though the poet were on a prayer walk. She makes you laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. Her poems are infused with an authenticity that sometimes makes you wince with your own not knowing. I admit I procrastinated reading these poems because I have been sitting with too much death these past few years. So of course the poems brought back painful memories of my own and I cried frequently. One of my favorite, while at the same time painful, poems is "Last Laugh" in which the poet describes the aching sadness of keeping cancer politely quiet:

We grew up admonished
You don't need to say anything . . .
The neighbors don't need to know . . .

This is something anyone who has gone through a cancer walk with anyone understands well. One feels the need to not disturb the neighbors with such private matters, not reveal the horrors, not talk about or complain about the wealth and depth of smells and sounds and gross particulars that accompany such diseases as cancer, particularly in its last stages. Even death takes a back door:

Porch railings hindered the opening of the front door.
Mom slipped out the back.

It's not an easy read. One feels death like a ghost in the garden. But there is also joy. "Lilies of the Valley" is a commemorative poem about the many friendships the poet and her daughter made during her daughter's cancer treatments, using the garden and soil once again as metaphor:

Friendships take root
in the dank culture of cancer,

. . . .

Beautiful bald heads, rounded
like tiny bells, nod together
over board games, cards, videos.
Laughter rings, lingers,
like such sweet fragrance.

This is a must read not just for those who have suffered through cancer with a friend or relative but for anyone who wants to try to understand the nature of that experience or hopes to be present in such moments of tyranny and grace.… (més)