Echoes No.10: A Special Rose Poem by Daniel Brick

We were walking through your Rose Garden
on the same day the West Wind was spreading
its warm health over flowers and people.
We walked through the same heat, the same
pure air, the same fragrant happiness.
But never did our steps take us to the same
place of delight in same moment of delight.
You failed to find me, I failed to find you,
our double efforts were futile. The "old garden"
was a labyrinth disguised as a place of promised
union. But are not gardens well-known for preserving
their secrets? They are not human, they know nothing
of desire... And indeed a higher purpose was
our purpose: you had sensed "devils" present that day,
prowling the garden, seeking to kill its fragile beauty.
We were summoned to a higher purpose than our simple
delight. And together we preserved this natural beauty.
It was a day of gain rather than loss, we preserved
the air, the breath, the double column of prayer ascending
and grace descending, the myth of time: the abundance,
the myth of space: the fulfillment, the myth of the rose: the beauty.

(This poem is a heart-felt response to Baharak's generous poem, "The Rose.")