Hyacinths
We met Edith Hazlet Howard in Howard Alley, on the back streets of Yreka, as she was readying her spring garden. It was a warm spring morning. With a scowl that would have frightened the devil himself, she attached to those pesky hyacinths with a vengeance, glaring at our unwelcome approach. I was startled by the presence of this formidable woman – she was the incarnation of Macbeth's witches in her baggy black overalls, gum boots, and shovel – I must've said something to break the ice because suddenly she burst into a big smile, as if we were long lost friends, and so, began her tale.
This documentary transcript which follows, is an attempt to capture edith's convoluted nonlinear style of speaking, which at first, made little sense, but as the story began to unwind, the connections between things became clearer. I've made no attempt to turn this into a traditional prose piece, which would be easier to read but it would also be watered-down and change by my own aesthetics of what writing should be. The connections she made were very much the stuff from which poetry is made. The metaphor of hyacinths and cancer, the living and the dying, and the daily survival of a fiercely independent pirate pioneer woman facing the ultimate challenge.
Edith Hazlet Howard remembers:
