The Trumpet Vine

"The Trumpet Vine" is a song I have always loved written by Kate Wolf. And when my dad built a trellis for me at my back door, I planted a trumpet vine. It did not take off the first year, or the second year. It was seven years before it thrived. But now it is very healthy, has thick vines, and must be trimmed back several times during the summer.



When I moved to this house, the backyard left a lot to be desired. It was surrounded by a rusty chainlink fence, but there was an old sweetgum tree in the middle of the yard, and I saw potential. One of the first things I did (with the help of my woodworker son) was build a picket fence with a gate to the back door.

I asked my dad to build a trellis over the gate, thinking that it would be nice to pass under it each day as I went out.

This is my dad on his 85th birthday (see trellis in the background).

I have since built a deck and planted lots of old-fashioned perennials and have a little herb garden.

Right now it is January, and all the plants are dormant and there is snow on the ground, but this song has been on my mind this week so I wanted to write about it.

Here are the words to "The Trumpet Vine" written by Kate Wolf. As of this writing, I am still trying to figure how to download music.

The trumpet vine grew in the kitchen window

And bloomed bright orange on the wall.

You sat in the morning light, holding a guitar

As the first summer rain began to fall.

And like the gentle raindrops, your words fell in the air

Making things so clear as we quietly sat there.

It reminded me of other times you had come before

And brought a song or just walked in through the kitchen door.

Now it seems the truest words I ever heard from you

Were said at kitchen tables we have known.

'Cause somehow in that warm room, with coffee on the stove

Our hearts were really most at home

Sitting at a table looking hard at you

Catching up on stories of the things we'd tried to do

It seems we really said the most when we didn't talk at all

Let the songs speak for us like the sunlight on the wall.

Now as we come and go, in sunshine and in rain

Some years are seen more clearly than the rest

And if it weren't for kitchen songs and mornings spent with friends

We all might lose the things we love the best.

I can see you sitting there beneath the trumpet vine

The sunlight through the window in the kitchen in my mind.

You came when you were needed, I could not ask for more

Than to turn to find you walking through the kitchen door.