Tag Archives: poem about roses

“Rose” for Esther’s Writing Prompt

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Every Flower

Who dares to press a flower to one meaning?
When one is in love, every flower is full of passion.
When love dies, each flower listens to your grief.

They pick up your thoughts  by some telepathy,
soak up meaning through the air,
are watered by your grief or joy.

Hope, regrets, solitude?
Flowers do not signify.
Flowers only serve as balm.

Any flower head in a baby’s fist, held out to her mother.
Hibiscus petals strewn across a reunion table,
rose petals on a marriage bed.

When I die, do not look for the me in the roses
blanketing my grave or the bougainvillea
fallen to the ground in which I lie.

Look for me in the blue thunbergia,
hearty and profuse and growing ever upward,
insisting on being seen. Me, here! Me.

 

 

This week, Esther’s  Writing Prompt is ROSE

 

Foreshadowing

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Foreshadowing

Why does the loveliest flower have the sharpest thorn
so you had to pay the tariff of young flesh pierced and torn
by the most splendid ornament that you had ever worn
as he clasped you to the music of the saxophone and horn?
It’s been true each day you’ve lived, was true when you were born,
and your father brought fresh roses—your bedside to adorn.
And it will go on being true on that future morn
when roses will be carried by those saddened and forlorn
as they place your ashes where you’ve asked that they be borne:
back to that same rose bush that so long ago was shorn
of the roses that you carried when your wedding vows were sworn.

 

 

The prompt today is thorny.