My dad liked roses

 My dad liked roses

He saved  his money

To buy books about them.

He grafted new roses on to old cuttings

On to wild rose stems.

He liked scented roses

Look here, he said.

This one is called Peace.

People came from neighbouring villages

And the nearby town

To ask my dad about roses.

He was glad to help.

And gave both his knowledge

And his plants with a smile.

In the winter we made

Rag rugs to lay on the hearth.

My mum drew patterns on the hessian

And we filled them in with rags of the right colour.

It took longer than you’d think.

And my dad made roses 

out of crepe paper.

His favourites were the tea roses

Small and contained and mostly pink

Although yellow ones, too.

White ones not so often because

They were a bit boring (I thought to myself).

My dad had epilepsy and arthritis and bronchitis

And before that, TB.

At 12, he had been sent away to either live or die.

He lived, and laughed about it

Was proud when later, every day, he went to work.

On Sundays, he sang around the. house.

When he retired, he went back into the garden

Happy from dawn till dusk

To grow cabbages and potatoes

And to tend

To his flowers.

When I went to visit

He would go to the shed and pull down a cabbage

Or wrap up some beans

Or whatever there was

For me to take home.

.

In summer, when the roses bloomed

Between the rockery and the greenhouse

I would walk up there to look for my favourite

And bend down to smell the soft floppy petals

round the heart of

Peace.