Tuesday Poem - Three Roses by Timothy Cahill

                                      
       
                                 THREE ROSES


                                 through the night I dreamed of her
                                 and three roses for my love -


                                 the first dry as memory
                                 fugitive, a concentrate
                                 of beauty drawn tight to the heart


                                 next a climbing blossoming vine
                                 incarnadine in the dawn
                                 mingled scents of spice and sky


                                 and the last a winter rose
                                 bare and barbed
                                 in silence staunched against the cold


                                 yet at the root
                                 all the art of bud and bloom


                                 Timothy Cahill

Timothy Cahill - writer, photographer and editor of Art Conservator, the magazine of the Williamstown Art Conservation Center - is founding director of The Center for Documentary Arts at The Sage Colleges in Albany, New York. Tim blogs here, where - in his statement of intention, he writes "The Center for Documentary Arts is an initiative to increase humanitarian awareness and foster compassion through the power of the documentary arts. Documentary arts are those narrative forms of photography, film, oral history, theater, painting, poetry, etc. that address social themes and reveal the human condition. . . "   

Three Roses moves me for many reasons, one of these being its acceptance of the heart's seasons. The poem lovingly illuminates the vulnerabilities and hopes inherent in our most intimate and enduring relationships. As with each and every truly creative process, love is asked to accommodate all weathers, including periods of what can seem like dormancy. Ah, and then the miracle of discovery. . . incubation; rich is the compost given over for its purpose - to break down the stubborn shape of things, nourish roots, promote growth in unseen places. . .      

                                  ". . . yet at the root

                         all the art of bud and bloom."

For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill. Kathleen Jones (a recent winner in the inaugural Straid Poetry Prize) is this week's editor; she has chosen The Hieroglyph Moth - a beautiful, ephemeral poem by French-born, Welsh-based poet Pascale Petit.