Roses Eternally

ABC Wednesday
May 13th, 2015

The letter is R, for Roses

I have been lucky to have lived in Rose country all my life.......

In Alberta, - Wild Rose Country, where I grew up

I walked to school in June on a pathway through a great cluster of wild rose shrubs,

and the memory of the fragrances remains with me to this day.

today the road that leads to Ginty's pond is lined with the same wonderful scent.

On the farm red and white blaze roses came trailing through the open windows to the kitchen

and our bedroom.

When we moved to town roses and poppies and lilies grew in great abundance over the
fence Charles built to enclose the flower bed fron the street

and in October we brought the remnants into the house to see us through

cold November.......

In the hillside garden we grew roses against the house and throughout the garden -the Abraham Darby, the Prairie Princess, the Mister Lincoln

and just scads of other shrub roses.

and here in town, the roses climb over the gateway to the side garden
 and take prime place in the raised bed

Mary Oliver writes of Roses....

What happens/to the leaves after/they turn red and golden and fall/away?  What happens

to the singing birds/when they can't sing/any longer? What happens to their quick wings?

Do you think there is any/personal heaven/for any of us?/ Do you think anyone,

the other side of that darkness,/ will call to us, meaning us?/ Beyond the trees/
the foxes keep teaching their children

to live in the valley/so they never seem to vanish, they are always there/
in the blossom of light/that stands up every morning

to the dark sky/and over one more set of hills,/along the sea,/the last roses
have opened their factory of sweetness

and are giving it back to the world./If I had another life/I would want to spend it all on some
unstinting happiness.

I would be a fox, or as tree/full of waving branches./I wouldn't mind being a rose/
in a field full of roses.

Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition/Reason they have not yet thought of.

Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what/
Or any other foolish question.

Well there, so much for roses and philosophy

Lots more on the letter R here at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to
Roger, Denise and relentless helpers....


A little addendum for my personal diary....

Here are the red roses I carried to the altar seventy years ago
on the 12th of May, 1945.....