In My Father's Garden

My father, a master gardener, soon to have completed his 88th year on the planet, has worked on his 10-acre homestead--the one I grew up on--for over 65 years; planting, cultivating, pruning, and bringing to final fruition his arboretum masterpiece. He has asked me to eventually eulogize him; we have always shared the same aesthetic, the simple love of nature and its subtle, year-after-year changing beauty. This poem is not of my "typical" style, but it is the beginning of a some-day eulogy, creeping ever closer, each day. The beauty, the lifelong labor, and the meaning of his natural masterpiece must be penned, though woefully inadequately. Thank you for your consideration in reading.
________________________________________________________________
In my father’s garden,
how lovely
the silky silence of the growing thing,
the sweetness of the emerging bud,
the tender bloom’s hushed whisper.

In my father’s garden,
coaxed seed and courted sprig,
undulant berm,
burgeoning view,
beloved, tended, nurtured;
The place to lose yourself,
when you want to lose yourself.

The shimmering glory of my father’s garden,
is his belief in tomorrow’s tomorrow,
today’s labor
creating tomorrow’s hope:
Dreams realized.

In my father’s garden,
grasses gently waving,
layers of leaves rustling,
towering pines’ sharp sap-scent wafting;
multicolored vistas whispering,

“Slow down, look around; stay awhile.
Stay.
Stay.
Breathe in beauty; breathe in calm.”

My father’s garden
has been his purest pleasure;
Adding years to his life,
and life to his years.

Each new seedling, nestled gently
and shrouded in black soil,
embodies my father's unwavering belief
in all of the florescent tomorrows,

Witnessed,
Desired,
Dreamt