BJZ Poems and Musings

When I was in medical school my shared apartment was in a complex that had many large cottonwood trees (genus Populus). Each June they would carpet the ground with their white fluffy seeds, sometimes to a depth of several inches, like the photo above from Purdue. (https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/summers-snowflakes-cottonwood-seeds-float-through-the-air/article_e9e6e960-03c9-11ee-b088-c77acc89f191.html ) I was doing my Obstetrics and Gynecology rotation in my 3rd year and one day interviewed and sat in on the care of a young woman who was given the news that she was not going to be able to have children – was not producing eggs. This was something I hadn’t encountered or thought much about, coming from families that had 10 children on one side and 5 on the other, and myself with 3 brothers. I remember being taken back by the finality of the discussion, and feeling very sad for this young woman. I wrote this poem sometime in 1983 and have made a couple slight wording changes since then for flow. I wouldn’t use the harsh word “barren” now, but it was used then to describe women who couldn’t have children. So, I am sharing what was in my mind as a medical student at that time. The words “fecundlings” and “zygotenous” were creations from a 24 year old mind. And the name Melissa is not the person’s name.

Follicula

Ankle deep the cottonwood seed came
This June in mongering puffs
Until it lay like dirty cotton
After the steamy rains;
And for forty million seeds
One fecundling will arise,
But one will arise.

A hundred gloved hands have felt
Between her thighs,
Patted the soil on a barren plain.
Outside the breeze has launched
A Populus cloud.

There are tears in your eyes,
Melissa, wetness smearing a longing.
Does the seed rot – is it never?
In insomniac wishes, whimsical, is it
Hopeseed alone? Unable to make
What nature deemed complete;
The cottonwood puffs clamber on your feet
And stick to the rug.
The staying power detaches
From the zygotenous dream.

Brian J. Zink   original poem, 1983, slight revisions 2025, 2026

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