Petunias in the Tractor Tire--By Michael Escoubas--United States

Petunias in the Tractor Tire

Here we are my grandson, age four, and me.

In old shoes and torn jeans, we use child-sized

scoops and rakes as we ready the soft earth.

We’re planting rainbows of petunias.

The boy’s hair splashes sunlight gold; his hands

love the dirt as they scoop holes for starts.

I’m clumsy in the art of planting flowers

but the boy thinks I know everything. He

works close to me, my garden prodigy.

Looking back, I recall something I lacked:

I would have traded my Babe Ruth rookie

baseball card for a grandpa with bent back

and torn jeans who planted petunias

with patient hands, and endless time for me.

Previously published in Light Comes Softly

After retiring from a 48-year career in the printing industry in 2013, Michael Escoubas began writing poetry for publication. His study of and interest in poetry goes back some 30 years. During this time he studied classical and modern poets learning from their works and from critics who comment about them. Michael writes poetry in part because his mother once said, “You have a gift for words; you should do something with that gift.”