Eragrostis Japonica in Mississippi
The southern ponds were surrounded by eragrostis japonica gathered in clumps by its edges. They curved over the water as tips of the grass made ripples on the surface. An old lady I met would plant and harvest them around her house.
“It’s known as lovegrass,” she whispered, stroking its adaxial blades.
I spent a year at her house and watched as they bloomed mid may into a warm lavender and in the fall they’d roll down the backs of their stems much like leaves do on trees.
“Why is it called lovegrass?” I inquired one day as she was watering her greenery.
“The word eragrostis is derived from Greek. You can break it into two core parts. Eros means love and agrostis means a kind of grass. It used to catch on the petticoats and dresses of women walking past and the flower panicles would wrap around their thighs tickling the backs of their legs.”
She smiled and her southern lilt felt warm in the summer sun. She was the nicest person I stayed with. Originally, I hadn’t planned to stay in Mississippi because besides the song I learned in elementary school on how to spell the state’s name I knew nothing about it. However, when my Subaru Forester broke down on the I-55 I was desperate for a house to stay in. While taking my car to get fixed in one of Jackson’s auto repair shops I ran into Josephine who agreed to let me stay with her in Holcomb. Her hair was a greying honey and she was like a mother figure to me giving me all the love she wasn’t able to share with anyone else.
“Why is the grass always so long?” I would ask.
She’d laugh, not out of making fun of me but in a heartfelt manner.
“It’s because the cows don’t usually eat it for its lack of nutritional value. That means it ends up growing uncontrollably.”
This made lovegrass invincible in a way because it didn’t have any predators and was able to sprout however it chose to. Its smell was light and sweet the way that holding hands feels. A feeling Josephine longed for.
Josephine never got to have a child.
She always wanted to have one of those big families with the crowds of golden blonde kids running through the rural landscape. With her old husband Don she had tried to have a baby girl but suffered a miscarriage. She couldn’t go through that pain again of feeling the joy of life slip between her fingers before she could fully grasp it. That hadn’t gone over well with Don. They fought before he divorced her saying that she was not fulfilling her deed to God by providing him with the children he deserved to have and raise. Her love died a little when he carried his trunk out the door and cut the tops of her grasses, insisting she stop treating her plants like her own kin. She had cried and told me she loved the pond nearby because it reminded her of the fluidity she yearned to have herself.
Despite the blades of the words thrown towards her I’d like to say she was as ruthless as the eragrostis japonica spewing in her backyard because she still managed to keep a smile every day.