WINTER ROSE

Return to numbness.
Sleep silent cottoned in black
Without light or pain or petal.
It is the winter of your dreams;
be warm in earth that hides you
And hides the world from you.
Return to numbness
And cease the climb on broken limbs
Toward futile suns.
Do not feel the starkness of your bones
Nor barrenness of sap.
Ignorant of spring pollen,

rest under decay;
Purple sweetness a tale nestled in the buds of yesterday.
And perhaps, perhaps tomorrow.
Lying deaf to prophecy think on nothing~
Nothing.

Julia Zed 2010

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I hate pruning my roses. I feel as though I'm being cruel, cutting off anything beautiful and leaving only bare thorny branches. They look so pitiful without their sprays of leaves and flowers. But it must be done; in fact I'm doing them a favour. After only a few weeks of ugliness, they begin to sprout all kinds of greenery, and before I know it there are already buds fattening and promising me hours of delight for my senses. I'm waiting for my favourite plant, the belle of them all, to sprout her first bud. She produces a deep burgundy blossom so fragrant that it makes me dizzy. I pruned her hardest of all.

When I think roses...this poem invariably pops into mind. I think it's depth, beauty and pathos are hard to match...


O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.


The Sick Rose is a poem by William Blake. The first publication was in 1794, when it was included in his collection titled Songs of Experience as the 39th plate. The incipit of the poem is O Rose thou art sick. Blake composed the page sometime after 1789, and presents it with the illuminated border and illustrations that were typical of his self publications. (From Wikipedia)