The Gardener
One day in 2008, I walked into the kitchen to find a note written in my parents' recognizable handwritings. Our family constantly leaves notes for one another, about where to find a house key, to make each other laugh, or to remember to do a chore. This note was different. Playing off the "roses are red" poem, my parents had written awkward verses questioning their love for one another. Imagine how, as their daughter, it felt to come upon that first thing in the morning! I was scared, heartbroken, but also inspired to challenge their assumptions and answer their questioning with my own play of words using that same poem. My poem is not necessarily better crafted, but when I gave it to my horticulturist father and then my mother, they understood the answer.
The Gardener
Roses are red
Even when they're dead
Albeit of a rustier hue.
Roses are red
unless they are
Purple or yellow, orange or blue.
Love is the rose?
So many suppose,
but it likens to something that dies.
Love is the rose?
Temporary
Beauty and shine to dazzle the eyes?
Who tends the rose
with clippers and hose
giving drink and trimming stray branches?
Who tends the rose,
with patient care
in lifeless winter, never blanches?
Though leaves are bare
He feels no despair
when he sees naught but dry twigs and thorn.
Though leaves are bare
he waits for Spring.
The death of blossoms he does not mourn.
Love is the Lord,
Majesty still stored
in the heavens and trees and flowers.
Love is the Lord;
like gardener
tends, and in dark winter never cowers.
We in our love
with gardening glove
must continue to tend and protect.
We in our love
fight winter chill.
Persistence and patience will perfect.
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