I suspect the poem below, written this morning, was initially inspired by a poem I read last night by the American poet, Robert Duncan, entitled “Eluard’s Death”. Duncan’s poem ends with these lines. 

She climbs into her husband’s mouth
to sit among the thorns.
A marriage.

But probably Duncan’s poem is only half the story, and not at all expressive of the sentiment I had in mind, and there is another half that I’m not telling, intended as it is for other more private ears. Who knows !

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Roses

My father kept roses
              red and white and yellow roses
some that grew
              to the size of a man’s fist
not that my father
              ever formed a fist
he was a gentle man
              who abhorred violence
and he loved roses

I say he kept roses
              he didn’t grow them
they didn’t need his help to grow
              the thick-stemmed bushes
grew effortlessly
              out of the earth
they had their own heritage
              and many lived long after he was gone
Before the war he had kept chickens
              now he kept roses
and with my mother
              a house full of children

From time to time
              and with immense care
he would uproot the bushes
              from one part of the garden
to set them down lovingly
              in another freshly made bed
enriched with top soil
              and a warm blanket of manure

On a summer’s day
              he could for hours sit in silence
perhaps smoking a pipe and admire
              their self-proclaimed beauty
the treacherous curved thorns
              as much as the intricate fold
of the petals as bees vied
              for the nectar that lay
at the heart of each flower

John Lyons