For You Poem by Jonathan Bellmann

For you I’ll plant this tree upon the ground
That you’ve walked there to grow and shade
And feed the friends that you’ve made.
May this tree bear sweet fruit found
Only in this place where others will
Come to learn of you and benefit
From your grace.
For you I’ll tend this field filled with bounteous food
For which you labored many years
Through endless droughts and lonely tears.
May this food feed the hungry enriching
Many lives to achieve and give their best
To the many hopeless, rest.
For you I’ll repair this barn mending every nail,
Painting planks, cleaning tanks and stacking each bail.
Here you toiled in the heat with aching blisters
On your hands and feet.
May this barn shelter the homeless,
The lonely and oppressed where broken lives
Are mended with loving kindness.
For you I’ll guard this house protecting every treasure
From the thieves of night and the sun’s light.
The lessons that you taught me shine brighter
Than gold; they neither rust nor fade nor tarnish
When old.
May this treasure be spent to cultivate minds
To burn brighter than the luster that money finds.
For you I’ll tend this grave cleaning off your stone,
Trimming grass and plucking the weeds that have grown.
How quiet it is here among so many trees
Like the leaves that have fallen
You’re honored among these.
May this grave beneath the soil
Remind us of our Lord that death has been conquered,
And life to all is restored.
For you I’ll shed these tears and mourn you for my loss,
Yet, through the haze of disbelief I see an empty cross.
May these tears be fruitful and water with my love
The tree that I just planted for my father now above.