Summer Poem

Bed of Roses

The middle-aged are easy

To pick off cleanly

Not one pure white petal falls.

 

All it takes is to grasp the golden heart,

Thumb in the floral testosterone,

Index and middle fingers behind,

A quick flick and the flower,

Mid-bloom, drops in the waste-bucket.

 

Only a few brief days of breast cancer will do it,

Or a swerve to the right at speed.

 

 

Sometimes you have to take

The very young, where the heart,

Light golden still,

Is almost hidden from view,

Petals strong, inward-curling.

The really old have a white heart

Speckled with black,

No sign now of gold,

And only if perfectly still

Will they hold on to all the limp petals.

 

You grasp more firmly still,

Gathering in as much as you can,

For the slightest shake

Of hand or breeze

Will scatter the weak pale petals

On the ground.

 

A whiff of pneumonia,

A hint of Alzheimers

Or a tiny stroke

Will snap you off.

 

And leave only

A ring of furry dead stamens

On the crown of a dormant seed-case,

Functional, never ornamental.

 

But at pruning time

When you pick up all the cut twigs

And toss them in the rubbish,

Somewhere in the sap,

Or deep in the little roots

Is the promise.

 

 

-26 January 2015