The abandoned garden

A man sat in his garden,
And he sat alone.
He looked around,
And thought back to the day,
When he was new to the world and was making his way,
When he had built this garden, he had promised himself,
I will build this garden and my children will someday,
Make it their own.
So the man taught them to plant and to reap, 
He gave them all they wanted, anything they could need.

He taught them about family,
About brotherhood, about loyalty.
He said to them, standing tall and proud,
Do what you must but this is your house.
This garden is our family,
So tend to it, you must.
Nurture it, love it,
But don’t let it rust.
Don’t let these thorns get in the way,
Our family like this garden must always stay.
The children promised to tend to it every day,
We promise you father, we won’t let it go disarray.

When the man left the world, there was a lot to be said,
But he died a happy man, with his family by his bed.
From the heavens above he watched his garden grow,
His children planted flowers but the thorns were still a foe.

The garden was beautiful, not a flower out of place
But nobody sat in the garden, perhaps it was just a phase?
The family moved on and lived in the home,
A house of forced smiles and one-way doors.

And in this house nobody spoke,
They laughed, they cried but nobody spoke,
They might have just fought, but nobody talked.
The children of the children tried to stand up,
But they were told to stay quiet, they were told to hush up.

There was no hatred, no vile, no violence,
In this house, there was only silence.
The man looked down from above and with sorrow he wept,
Why my children, why don’t you speak?

Years later when the garden was as beautiful as ever,

The children saw it sitting as empty as ever.
So they tried to fix the grass, the thorns, the gate,
But even they knew that now it was much too late.
They still tried to mend it, to make the garden grow,
But they forgot just one little thing,
You reap what you sow.

from The Express Tribune Blog http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/29164/the-abandoned-garden/