Easter Eggs and Tulips

Easter Eggs and Tulips Grandaddy was a quiet soul, born in 88 on a spring day. He often stopped to graze his sheep, on the lush green grass shoots in May found at my grandmother’s old house, where she played with dollys and jacks. Knowledgable gardener by trade, he grew crops and purple lilacs catching a beautiful maid’s eye, some 20 years older was he, and yet from his earliest glance, he was steadfast to his Corrie. He planted stately green magnolias, bordering the road and our land, growing his own pipe tobacco, his battle with bamboo most grand exotics brought from the Great War, in France’s trenches he sat long wondering if he’d make it home, the mustard gas a near swan song. I have childhood recollections, of you digging in the dirt bed planting Avignon tulip bulbs, silky pedals flowering red bursting freely with Easter Eggs, cleverly hidden from our sight by gentle liver-spotted hands, unfurling them with slow delight. You left us when I was but nine, my memories are vague shadows, dreams of you with a spade in hand, smelling sweetly of pipe tobacco.