by Michael Ball
Our gardener, unimaginably old to a child loved the two blonds, my sister and me. We, if we were literal, parroted we were in the Occupation Army in Japan. From infancy to four years, I was not much of a soldier. Yet, our ancient gardener made us feel lordly. While hoary old, he was child short. He was bonsai lean too, but his beard … Yes, his beard plays on my brainpan inner screen seven decades later. His whiskers wispy and long enough to stroke the paving stones in the garden he so skillfully tended. On seeing the blonds, his thin lips crinkled on the edges in a warm smile. “Ohayō Gozaimasu,” he chanted each day, slowly, seeming to savor each tone in the phrase for “Good Morning.” He seemed to find joy in greeting us. Pleasing children pleases old men. I never ceased my joy at watching his long, long gray beard brush the walk.
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Michael Ball scrambled from daily and weekly papers through business and technical pubs. Born in Oklahoma and raised in rural West Virginia, he became more citified in Manhattan and Boston. As one of the Hyde Park Poets, he has moderate success placing poems in numerous online and print journals and anthologies.
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