Len Webster's 'My Father's Children' Poem by Len Webster

Framed by black grapes on the greenhouse vine
And holding a pot, the red geranium flowering,
He smiles across from the photograph.

He'd asked for the photograph to be taken that day,
Catching me off-balance but eager to please
A father who rarely requested, was always there,
Even when stockpiled in wasted hours at work.

The green house has gone, brought down for safety,
The ground beneath flattened,
An archaeological site awaiting fruitless excavation.

The vine survives but barely,
Struggling a little in the open,
Waiting to be pruned and protected,
Placed again in the security of the house of light,
To be treasured and tended with love
By a man whose passions were puzzling to others
But who confessed that he almost cried
The day he thought that the vine had died.