Easter Eggs and Tulips

Easter Eggs and Tulips Grandaddy was a quiet soul, born in 1888 on the first day of Spring. He often stopped to graze his sheep, on the lush green grass found at my grandmother’s old house, where she played with dollys and jacks. A knowledgable gardener by trade, growing flowers and crops he caught a beautiful maid’s eye nearby, some 20 years older than she was he and yet from their earliest glance, he remained loyal to his Corrie. Grandaddy planted stately green Rhododendrons, 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. My childhood recollections of him digging in the dirt bed planting Avignon tulip bulbs, silky pedals flowering brilliantly red bursting freely with our 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, a bible in one hand, pipe in the other, curling smoke around you, smelling sweetly of spicy tobacco.