memory

The Missing Rose

Here I am in this coastal city of pirates and thieves

where rich and poor alike are daily robbed

of all but the sight of countless flowers.

I float in a cosmic sea of blossoms and leaves

whose beauty and essence pervades my being.

That, I am. Yes, I am that.

Do you think I’d wish to rob anyone of a flower?

I’d rob myself doing that!

Let me ponder the mystery of a missing rose

when I created your wife’s bouquet.

Ah, yes. Now I clearly see…

In another time and place, I was a missing Rose

plucked young and fresh from the Isles.

I lived in a Viking poem long ago—

a scald’s few word of plunder taken.

Even now I feel that freezing terror

awakened by raiders from the sea.

How I hated to be owned and used

and valued less than a good sword!

Now I know I’m here to forgive and forget—

and so I do.

Will you forgive me for my ‘oversight’ too?

July, 2000

Flowerpoet