My grandfather doesn’t do a lot of things in his retirement. He plays ping pong, occasionally swims. But his crowning joy is his garden, which he nurtures in the blazing Las Vegas sun. When we would visit, my grandfather would proudly show his blooming cacti and complain about his incessant rabbit problem (which he solved by building a jail-like compound, making the whole structure look very intimidating). My grandfather has never failed to inspire me with his stories of how he immigrated here from China, the way he struggled and then succeeded in the US. He teaches me how to play poker and cook eggs interwoven with stories and lessons. I took the idea of his garden and replaced his prized gourds and lettuce with the important values he has instilled in us. He always tells me: “I don’t care what you do in life or where you end up. I just want you to be happy.” His belief in me and my cousins shows throughout this poem, especially in part where he pours our insecurities over happiness. He always has had a special way of quelling our worries. Though he is the main focus of this poem and is the primary character, I tried to change the narrative one or two times to ‘you’ to spread simple messages to the reader, and then, changing the narrative to my cousins and myself to show the effect his words have on us. I used the repetition of ‘my cousins and me’ to show the common theme of us and how his message impacts us every time we see him，and then the themes of rabbits because of the often humorous way he rants about them. Every detail is completely unique to my grandfather: his boat made out of poker cards, his pistachio shells - used to play said poker game instead of chips, high bar stools - once I fell off and I think grandfather almost had a heart attack at the way my head hit the ground (he never lets me forget that). I experimented with spacing to place emphasis on certain words and lines and wove abstract concepts with the concrete, liking using very little capitalization to show the youth of my cousins and I with the wisdom of my grandfather (hence the reason it is capitalized). I’ve wanted to do a poem as an ode to my grandparents for a while, so I’m happy with the way it turned out.