My Father Was A Gardener

 

My Father Was A Gardener 

My father was a gardener

He was many things

But my father was a gardner

started with a single Snake plant

in a sunless window

in a tiny Brooklyn apartment

coaxed to vibrancy

Onto small precise pots on glass shelves

in tract housing

spilling in the sun

cacti and violets African

my father was a gardener

at all other times fastidious

hands sunk in loam forearm deep

fingernails espresso ringed

in"not dirt" bathed in "earth containing all"

Parting backyard ground to reveal

shell pink worms cool and fat

Sliding over tickled fingertips

My father was a gardener

finally arrived at dreams' fruitioned

greenhouse and an acre

wild soaring land pine swept

planted each varigated blossom

each new small sapling

pressed into perfectly positioned sunlight

My father was a gardener

he did not belong

in antiseptic sheets 

yearning to grow

He needed sun and rain

and riches of earth

When time finally turned

I smelled only loam

heard only the gentle lift of shovel

pressing him in white shrouded ready body

into the sweet smelling loam

a sacred singular seed

   

My father was a Gardener

returned

once again

home

there

in every rustled

shimmered leaf on summer wind

in each verdant grass blade

of every velvet flower petal

  

shining in each and every summer

chestnut blossom shower

under crystal snow in winter

In the crimson crunch of leaves in Fall

in all

of all 

for all

my father was a gardener

 

The earth his canvas, child, lover, mother

creator and created

 

My father was a gardener

My father is the garden now

And I the tender of it all

Happy Fathers' Day