Tim Kavi with his grandmother, Lura Newland @ 1978
Today would be my grandma's 121st birthday. I've written about her before in several posts on different birthdates. Here's one link. When I was very very young, grandma used to write her poems and she would encourage me to do so along with her. She was a profound influence on me in many ways. I come from a line of poets, going back generations; my great grandfather (grandma's dad), my grandmother, my mother, and then me, and now, my daughter! My publisher has accepted a collection of poems that will be published of my grandma's work. This collection will be called Heartland: Poems from the Heart by Lura Newland. (The following poem is about the gardens that she planted with my grandfather every year, and how tending to their beautiful garden caused a beautiful rainbow! A perfect poem as we start to contemplate spring. :-)).~~TK
Your Rainbow (poem)
by Lura M. Newland
A posie here and a daisy there
Lillies and roses and 'mums everywhere.
Who planted them there but he and you,
That's what made the beauty as the garden grew.
Beauty in God's hand with love he gave,
Brought out in the flowers you worked to save.
Flowers of all sizes, colors so rare,
They looked so beautiful planted there.
They need not be spaced so far apart,
Each little root was a hunk of your heart.
A wee little hunk that grew so big,
When you really did get down to dig.
The soil is so rich with joy and love,
When watered with teardrops from above.
Teardrops, like diamonds, from Heaven did fall,
To make the rainbow from the colors all.
There's a rainbow in your garden plot,
A painter's Glory and God's Beauty Spot.
God needed help to make it that way,
So the posies took over by blooming each day
You had to put in your two-bits worth,
By planting and digging and coaxing Mother Earth.
You wielded the rake and used the hoe,
To make perfect, each tiny little row.
The row could be long, deep, or a little short,
Then scattered with seeds of all sorts.
Then a few days of sunshine, then rain,
The Beauty paid off for all the pain.
The pain from stooping on bended knees,
No one else would have flowers like these.
Now let us sit back and count up the score,
See what we have we didn't have before.
We see posies, joy, beauty and love,
Sunshine and teardrops from Heaven above.
That's what made that garden so beautiful one day,
When it turned the posies into God's Bouquet.
God's Bouquet to have and to hold,
The Rainbow of colors and the pot of gold.
Teardrops helped posies to fill your garden, you know,
With love, woven into God's Bouquet and Your Rainbow.
