Who Possesses the Tender Plant?

by Sean Dempsey

Inspired by a true story of dismal woe…

Spoke an aged gardener,
As he tapped his gentle knee:
“By thy green thumb and patient eye,
I pray thee, hark to me!

A tale of love and loss I’ll tell,
Of root and tender leaf,
Of a plant I loved more true than man,
And lost to mortal grief.

For when I was but newly wed,
And all the world seemed fair,
A sprig of life in pot of clay
I found and set with care.

It was no tree of noble girth,
No rose with blushing pride…
But small and shy, with humble leaves,
That trembled at my side.

I placed it on the window sill
Where sunlight kissed its face,
And spoke to it as to a child,
In gentle, low embrace.

My wife, she smiled to see me so,
And laughed at my delight;
Yet she would pour the water pure,
Each morning and each night.

I gave it words, she gave it drink.
And thus our task was twain;
For love, though dry as summer dust,
Can bloom through others’ rain.

The years went by; it grew so strong!
Its tendrils brushed the pane.
Through winter frost and summer heat,
It thrived through joy and pain.

And I would sit and gaze at it,
For hours long and deep,
Until it seemed to gaze back too,
And stir me from my sleep.

For love, though patient, asks no wage,
And never thinks to own;
So I, in foolish tenderness,
Believed it mine alone!

But time, the thief of beauty’s hue,
Crept softly through the door;
My wife grew weary of the plant,
Its color pleased no more.

“It clashes with the drapery,
Its green offends the tone.
So I’ve gifted it to another man;
It’s better in their home.”

And so she took my heart away,
And gave it, calm, aside;
And though I cried, she only said,
“All its water I supplied!

For love is but a tender word,
And words cannot sustain;
What life has need of watering,
Was never truly thine.”

I raved, I wept, I cursed the fates,
And wandered through the town:
Through alleys choked with weeds and moss,
And gardens fallen down.

I sought it in the merchant’s stalls,
Where plants in rows are sold;
I sought it in the neighbor’s yards,
Through wind, through rain, through cold.

For years I roamed from place to place,
Through seasons’ endless spin,
Till every leaf became to me
A ghost of what had been.

At last I came upon a house,
And through its pane did see,
A pot of clay, with tender leaves:
My plant! It looked at me!

Yet though my heart leapt wild within,
I did not cross the door;
For there it lived, well-tended, bright,
As it had ne’er looked before.

And in that still and sunlit room,
A rake hummed a wistful tune,
And brushed its leaves with gentle care,
Beneath the afternoon.

Then I knew love’s most cruel deceit,
More sharp than thorn or stone:
For though I’d loved that living thing,
It bloomed not for me alone.

So now I walk through endless fields,
Where no green thing takes root,
And ponder what is truly mine:
My love, or her pursuit?

And you, O traveler passing by,
Judge this as you toil:
Who owns the blossom… he who loves,
Or she who wets the soil?

And that rake who tends my love today,
With a heart so full of light,
Sings pure odes to his gentle shrub…
Until it’s stolen in the night.

For if he fails to water (only love),
Some soul may steal from him,
The only joy he’s ever known,
And the dark cycle begins again…