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.
What do you think?