The Gardener

By: Victoria G. Smith

 

Bare hands tap root ball out of container,
lower sapling into womb of the earth,
fill the gaps with soil, compacting,
nurturing new life with snug embrace.
He waters around it in gentle cascade, whispering
the mantra of all agents of creation:
This is your place under the sun—
spring forth and be abundant!
Repeating this ritual with remaining brood,
he’s oblivious to the aging of the day.
When fading light signals ¬supper’s hour,
among progeny, he takes his place.
I watch his hands while he eats, silent.
Dirt still clings under his nails.
I dare not utter my heart’s desire:
Papa, speak to me as with your protégées.

Poet’s Notes: This month marks the ninetieth birthday of my father. Above poem was inspired by him. He is the quintessential green thumb. Even the most difficult plants grow under his care, including plants he’d gathered during some of his visits with me in America that he’d carefully packed and brought home to the Philippines to plant in his little rooftop garden at our family home. Such plants grow enough to bear some vegetable or flower at least once before they finally die because they weren’t meant to be grown in a tropical clime in the first place.

As my siblings and I prepare to celebrate this milestone of our father’s and our family life, my thoughts inevitably come to reflect upon my father as a parent—which of course brings up many conflicting emotions within me. For my father, I suspect, has been more comfortable as a gardener than as a parent. It’s easy to understand this when one considers that no plant talks back or argues with him unlike some of his children, most especially, his eldest child who is yours truly. I suppose this isn’t surprising either when one considers that I am, after all, my father’s daughter. From when I developed my own capacity for reason, I’ve questioned my father about things he’s said or done that didn’t make sense to me at the time, which led us into countless power struggles through the years on who was right and who was wrong in one issue or another. Is it any wonder then that I became a lawyer? I had the best preparation for such vocation.

In reinventing myself as a writer and poet in my adopted country, I discovered I could only write from a place of authenticity within me. This inevitably required of me an understanding and wisdom possible only with seeing and thinking about the world, including my father, in a different way—that is, not through the eyes nor the mind, but with the heart of an all-compassionate being. It is thus with wisdom accessible only from such understanding that I can now see how my father must have struggled most of his life to contain his often unpredictable explosive emotions—a hereditary trait, most likely, as I’d observed the same from a number of relatives from his side of the clan. This was aggravated by his lack of communication skills to properly express his true feelings and good intentions—a handicap, I think, that most men in his generation suffer. From herein arises the wisdom that my generation is challenged to attain: When to cut off our chains from the “sins” of our fathers (to borrow the words of the Bible), and to forgive, forgive, forgive. And love. (Copyright © 2015 by Victoria G. Smith).