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
