Requiem for a gardener

How strange that I, who find the pricking tears
Starting unbidden as I watch a play,
Found none to mourn my father, whom I loved
Perhaps the grief that touched me then
Went far below the springs of quick responses
Down to a deeper, more enduring vein.
I walked the earth dry-eyed and desolate
Denied the solace of the healing tears
While every turn renewed the sense of loss.
Until the roses, which he loved so well
Bloomed, and all the garden sparkling in the dew
Wept in remembrance and fondly, I wept too…