0011 Blown Rose Wise Poem by Michael Shepherd

How wise
the rose?

near the shortest day,
the seasons all confused this year
even the great globe itself
confused by man

and on this gusty day
a rose throws
itself upon the world
simultaneously hero, heroine, victim
seen calling through the window;
if it were a child alone out there
you would rush out to save it

does the rose know
how beautiful it is?

or is it wiser than we are,
knows more of love?
of law?
looks tenderly upon
man’s need for beauty,
frail reassurance
of the beauty of our own soul

any moment now
the wind will tear its weakening petals

yet I saw it while it lasted, as if
the only rose in the world

and before it returned
to wherever the souls of roses
sigh, laugh, smile,
return to eternal Rose

it wrote this poem in – to it –
an unfamiliar language
that tried to translate
its beauty into me

wiser, in some way,
than I