I forgot about this short poem I penned back in August on the inside of the back cover of Ramey’s book after sitting on a bench intending to read in a rose garden in Golden Gate Park. It seems relevant to some of what I’ve covered above:

I stand here watching

rose petals fall.

I pick up a fallen flower.

I see

the beauty of this rose

in falling petals;

the light of that sun

in burning plasma.

This rose

is

only petals curling

from an unseen center.

This living rose

is

an eternal idea whose light

spirals brightly out of a

still silent stem.

Gradually arriving in time–

instantly arising in space–

this

rose

slows

to show itself,

curling into colored folds,

descending into death,

dissolving into soil.

Once arising,

now falling away,

it is again

just

this

rose.

This living rose,

just like

the Living God,

is a dance of veils:

in the glances of many

passing faces,

one by one,

God and the rose reveal their lightness.

In the end,

last petal fallen,

all that is left

is you.

You are the breathing of the world

inward to thought,

outward to being;

You are a cosmic force

from beyond

the earth.

To be you,

to be this rose,

to be this rose in you,

or you in this rose,

is to be between ecstasies.

The essence of this rose

is the scent released

by its corpse

into sun-warmed air,

there lifted from my hand

and delivered the stars above my head.