Calloused fingers
Clenched around an old,
Splintering garden spade.
Wiry threads of graying hair,
Disheveled under a fading baseball cap.
Bronzed skin, wrinkled
And weathered with time and sun.
Your clothes were dirty and full of holes.
You were near a resilient greenhouse,
Whose plexiglass panels
Were beginning to turn amber with age.
The cicadas sang through the trees,
Beams of light cascading between branches.
You were smiling, as if to say,
"You are home, Son."
All I saw was a broken man.
A humbled man covered in filth,
Standing beside a pile of crumbling bricks,
And a few mounds of pulverized dirt.
Even the greenhouse
Seemed to be coming undone.
I didn't want to come undone.
You brushed the dirt away,
Knocked your boots together,
To shake off the caked up mud,
And returned to the
Antiquated farmhouse,
With the paint peeling and cracking
On the siding, as I left.
I escaped to the city
And I made a life.
We all did.
You stayed.
You waited.
You dug in deep,
And you suffered.
You suffered so much.
But you never stopped loving us.
The garden spade broke,
Under the weight of your grief.
Your hair turned to silver,
With the wisdom earned in your pain.
Your darkened skin became cancerous.
Our lives are fragile.
The greenhouse was torn down
And though it had been
A symbol of your achievements
It had also come to teach us all
A lesson in impermanence
And was no longer needed.
I miss it so much now.
I miss the sweet damp smell
of the potting benches.
I miss the peaceful afternoons
Of transplanting cuttings with you,
Watering perennials in golden silence,
And the diligence of pulling
The tiny budding weeds
Springing up everywhere in the garden.
I miss taking off my shoes
And letting the soft, wet dirt squish
Between my toes.
But most of all I miss you.
Now, when I come to visit, Your door is always open. You grant me the privilege Of walking with you through
All of the beautiful gardens
You spent your life creating
And we talk as though I had never left.
You feel like home.
But I regret leaving you, Dad.
I feel ashamed of making you suffer.
I feel ashamed of judging you
For only doing what you love
And I wonder what my life
Would have been like
With more of you
In it.
I know there is still time to make it right.
I love you, Dad. I love you back. I can't wait to see you again.
- September 8, 2019. -
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