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 !
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
johnjosephlyons 