The Rose OR Answering to Autumn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I recall writing today’s little poem in 2003 after pausing to admire a rose in someone’s garden.

My mother loved roses, as did my late partner. Both died many years ago. They never met, yet here I was bringing them together in my thoughts, years on. How strange and sometimes incredibly moving that memories can be triggered, as if my magic, by the slightest thing, past and present fitting perfectly into each other like pieces of a jigsaw.

Will I ever be a perfect fit into someone’s jigsaw, I wondered…? And what will the complete jigsaw look like, mine or anyone else’s …?

It is no coincidence, I suspect, that the trigger for such thoughts, and indeed a poem, should embrace such visions of the heart as beauty, peace, and love.

THE ROSE or ANSWER ING TO AUTUMN

See them, one by one, 

petals falling away,

discarded by autumn, 
remains of our day

We helped it to grow,

nurtured its blooms

at time's open window

on ageless dreams

While winter keeps

no flower in view,

the rose, it but sleeps

in my love for you

Dreams, one by one.
petals falling away,
answering to autumn,
remains of our day.

Copyright R N Taber 2004, 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004, rev.. 2014.]