Tuesday 10th February

This is very old.  I cannot even remember when I wrote it but I think I was still in my twenties.  I like the simplicity of it and return to it occasionally but can never find a way to improve it, so here it is – unchanged for maybe forty years…

A Rose

Sitting

As the morning goes

A cameo rose

Captured ‘neath glass

And guilt-gilt frame

The lattice work window pane

Obscures all to passers-by

 

And after noon

The senses swoon

And memory’s faltering tread

Takes her again

Retracing the places

And the faces fade

As the light of day

 

Even in the evening

She sits

And orange light from the road

Goads her on to imagine

She is young again, a bright young thing

In a flower gown, admirers drift

In and out of her

Consciousness

Each one a temptation

To fall to

If only she had just

Once said yes

 

Night-night comes

The traffic almost ceases

The wrinkles and the creases sigh

And she hauls herself to bed

Past the long oval mirror

A vase

And a rose once red