roses

I remember a summer evening
 when you brought me roses, 
full-blown, blowzy,
 stolen from a neighbour’s garden.

I laughed,  
and listened to your promises
 as you crushed the falling petals 
underfoot.

Originally published in The Coffee House, Issue 10, 2003.

The old poem is included mainly as accompaniment to the photo, which I wanted to include to add some colour to the page after a number of fairly wordy posts. However, now I’m here and on the subject of roses…

It always strikes me as strange that there should be so many roses in Spain. I was brought up to associate them with England, but all the city parks here have their formal rose gardens, too. This splendid pink bloom was growing in the village, down by the river, in an area tended by council gardeners.

Even though they may be identical to the plants grown in the UK, there does seem to be something different about the ‘character’ of a Spanish rose; even in winter they never seem quite as vigorous and green, and in summer they are distinctly gnarled and stubborn as they force their way through cracked earth and continue to blossom when the temperatures are up in the high 90s.

These Spanish roses probably deserve their own poem, but, knowing how slowly my ideas develop, I don’t think I’ll have anything worth posting for several years!