Smithereens Press Chapbooks Left Behind by Colm Scully | Page 10

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Pink roses on a high hedge,
planted by my father,
last through summer.
Peonies flush deep red,
the stems grow heavy with flower in June.
Within days they are weighed down,
petals float to the grass.
He took the bulbs from his mother’s garden in the sixties.
Two cherry trees,
pulled, roots intact, from their birthplace
by one of the first four wheel drives,
replanted here to bloom each spring for twenty years.
One rotted in the shade of the thirty foot Scots Pines.
We planted two hundred one winter’s morning,
my father lying in the hospital.
Now they hide the view over the valley,
shelter the house from the road’s sound.
In May St Joseph Lilies, his favourites,
grow long tall stalks.
Cold green-white baby buds
bow their fragile heads, blessing the scene.
He guarded them, his prize,
against trespassing dogs
wilful children running over beds
and the wind.
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