Wild Rose Poem by Margie Cronin

for Pablo Neruda

Blood too
travels with the adventurous thorn
and this life began in randomness -
colour born
on a day when every colour
was practising white.
This is the way to understand
how the world was here
before you
and there are variations
on this discovery -
only one person lives an age
that has never been lived by another
you do not need to know you are learning
to learn
and you cannot cut
mirrored flesh. Beginning
always encompasses mastery
and this rose too
is attracted by the names of life.
Its appointment is with the birth
of significance
and the stems of its plant hide
in something old that mimics death
our debt to time.