My Father’s Sweet Pea Bed Poem by C Richard Miles

I used to watch my father in his sweet-pea bed
As, delicately, in his strong, firm hand he held
Each tender, trailing shoot and, with a shining ring
Of slender steel, he’d bind it safely to the pole.
Between his trembling forefinger and thumb, adept,
He’d pinch off tendrils, nip the straggling sideshoots out
And send the sap’s sweet strength into the budding blooms,
Four in a row, to gain perfection for the show
Or even five or six, but never two or three
Which selfish drought would ill conspire to send, to steal
The elegance which rain and sun in equal parts
Could furnish fragrant flowers for the flagstone hearth.

The ritual began in autumn every year,
Collected catalogues were brought out, studied, pored
Till greaseproof packages of Sutton’s seeds were sent.
Those peppercorns in miniature were soaked and scored
And set in compost, I think John Innes number One.
All through the winter, first the airing cupboard’s warmth
Sent seedlings strength to germinate with surer starts.
The greenhouse next, where primeval paraffin lamp
Was often lit to vanquish frost’s fierce harsh assaults.
In spring the home-made coldframe housed the hardening sprouts
Constructed out of windowframes, no longer glassed
But sporting polythene securely nailed and tacked.

Then planting out began in earnest in late spring
Beside each pole, secured with cane and wire and string
A masterpiece of bamboo fencework, hung with hope.
Spread out its length beside asbestos garage wall,
Though hungry sleeping slugs awaited their next meal.
Pale pellets did their trick and, upwards to the sky,
Aspiring vines and tendrils grasped and clawed their way.
All through the summer watering cans were amply filled
And lugged laboriously along the garden path
To satisfy the sweet-peas thirst and in the drought
Of seventy-six, leftover water from the bath
Kept them from death when all around was shrivelled up.

My mother got the first, sweet-smelling pastel pinks
And dusky blues and sumptuous silky creams to deck
The dresser, fill the fireplace and mantelpiece.
They filled the house all summer long with lavish trail
But finer flowers were cultivated, specially,
Kept for the shows in villages along the dale,
Whilst harvest festivals and neighbours took the rest.
I still remember those varieties he grew
Like Southbourne’s sea-blue tints, pale peachy Honeymoon,
And Leamington in sundry muted semblances
That won the trophies, medals, voted best in show
With prizecards proudly pinned upon the greenhouse wall.

And, as the summer shone in sweltering, humid heat,
That toilsome task late reared its ugly, hateful head:
The layering of gangling stalks, grown overtall
Which clambered to the top of eight-foot, bamboo poles.
Each metal ring was unsecured and calmly plucked
Without disturbance to the towering, fragile vines
Which then were laid, in rows like straw-filled mattresses
Along the ground until their tender heads were stayed
Beside a new supporting cane to help them rise
And dower more blossom in the early autumn air
Till frost’s fierce fingers dealt a crushing, bitter blow
And vines were stripped but roots left in the soil below.

What time he spent, my father, in that sweet-pea bed.
What joys he gave to mother and to all the rest.
What care he took, what graceful gems he ably grew,
Though they and he are gone, they sleep together yet
Since on his coffin, sweet-peas silently were laid
And, as a tribute, when he came back home to us
After cremation, father’s ashes white were strewn
To lie in peace upon that simple sweet-pea bed
Which was his life, so he could share, after his death
Those scents which had suffused his final, vital breath.
And mother can still sense, in whispered memory’s air,
That, in his garden, father’s essence is still there.