It made me write this for reasons I cannot explain.Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.
A single rose can be my garden
He only knew her name was Rose, and Rose was the perfume
she always wore, its sweet scent lingered when she left the room.
He thought that like her namesake she’d a penchant towards pink.
With dress and shoes in matching shade, and pink champagne her drink.
She knew him as Róża the Pole- all his mates called him that.
He was a ringer, tall and dark – wore jeans and a stained hat.
His manners were old fashioned and she liked his courtly ways
She was treated like a lady, which she was in better days.
But now she was a working girl, here wares she now displayed
and ambitions from long ago times, to them she had put paid.
But though men bought her body there were none who owned her soul
and secrets were held deep in her heart. Tight locked, under control.
The man Róża had secrets too, he came from war torn soil
where once he lived a happy life and worked at honest toil
to support his wife and little girls – but alas they now were gone
and he tried to find redemption in this land of blazing sun.
But for now two roses rambled intertwined in thought and deed,
and as each held to the other, each fulfilled a desperate need
to be whole again, forgiven, for the failures of their past.
Both were victims, both quite innocent, but stained and now outcast.
And they nurtured one another, became friends and lovers too.
She gave up the bar room sojourns – They united, became two.
Róża found some peace and happiness, and put his girls to rest
and together they made babies of their own to fill their nest.
Little Rosa was a cherub, ringlets of dark brown did curl.
She had blue eyes like her mother, she was Daddy’s little girl.
If sometimes she saw a shadow fleeting on her Mothers face
she had no way of knowing of another time and place.
Of another girl called Rosa Lee who died when she was two
Of a mother Rose who blamed herself though nothing she could do.
Of a fire fierce and blinding and a small child trapped in flames,
and a mothers heartache through the years, A mothers tears and pains.
Roses are sweetly perfumed they seem delicate and frail
but in fact they are a hardy bloom, surviving flood and gale.
Even harsh fires don’t daunt them, though outwardly they are scarred
a spark of life oft’ lingers inside superstructure charred.
A rose by any other name would still always be sweet
as it was for Rose and Róża. Were they both fated to meet?
For another bud is blooming and they’re hoping for a boy
Don’t you love a happy ending? Don’t it fill your heart with joy?
Maureen Clifford © 12/11
and here is my rose
