My Grandfather’s Greenhouse

Written 27/09/2017.
For Terry C.R. Evans, 1937–2007.

It is at times like these
I am reminded of my grandfather’s 
greenhouse.

Stepping over the threshold
and feeling the warmth,
Feeling the sun filter into
that cramped, glass room — 
if there was sun, that is.
And if there was light
(There almost never was.)
It came through the remnants of vine
still atop the roof, 
The lingering evidence of
the old man’s try at grapes.
(We called it “growing raisins”.)

And the smell!
What a smell it was: 
The mulchy, heavy scent
of heated compost,
The ozone smell-taste of the heat iself,
and supporting the rest,
The florid, green power
of the leaves themselves,
All growing together.

Tomatoes and cucumbers grew up high,
Clinging to wooden rods, supports,
And when I think of them
I am reminded of his hand
On my back after a fall.

I can still see him now,
Bent at the hip over an old table,
Pouring soil into a pot
and gently blanketing a young shoot,
Cupping his hands around it and giving it a place to bloom,
Flecks and fragments of dirt cast away
And dropping over the text of The Sun
that served as tablecloth.

If I close my eyes
I see him,
Wearing that old shirt
that was more hole than fabric,
A forest green that matched
his darling nursery,
And I hear the lullaby he sung as much to them as me:
My darling Clementine,
half-remembered, half-forgotten.

Oh my darling,
Oh my darling,
Oh, my darling Clementine…