Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Rose Gate


There’s a garden among the stars

where flowers are gates to other worlds.

Try the pink rosebud that opens shyly.

plunge through its smooth and fragrant folds

into the Victorian garden where tea is laid

and sweet girls play and show a blushing priest

a bunnyhole that leads to Wonderland

and a ginger cat issues opaque directions.


Take the dare of the “Drink Me” bottle

and you’ll become inconceivably small

even faster than Alice, so fast you won’t see

a grass blade rear into a royal palm

and ants turn into six-legged horses.


You’ll grow, by diminishing, into a world

vaster than the one you knew before,

you’ll swim among stars no telescope has seen,

you’ll find light-ships among the galaxies,

immensity held in the iota of a speck

that eludes the electron microscope

but not the home-drawn voyager.


Photograph by Kirsten Love Lauzon

14 comments:

Tomoko said...

How lovely the pink rose is!
It is very soft and captivating to my heart. I am a non native English speaker, so it is not easy for me to read your poem, but the dreamy poem makes me read again and again. Forest Dream Weaver recommended me to read your beautiful post.I thank her and your post.I will visit you again.

nina said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Savannah said...

This is lovely... I was reminded of a dream in which, after answering to a gatekeeper figure behind a desk, all travelers were handed a long stem rose nearly three feet tall as a passport for entry to a portal gate into another realm. Most were white, some red, some still in a bud. I was so taken in by the rose I never did step through that gate. Thank you for evoking the possibility that the rose may have been the gate!

Kirsten said...

Sublime.

The rose is a special gateway for me. It takes me to special people I love who have died.

My grandmother Emma Lauzon and my dear sweet familiar, Rain-Bodhi the wunder-beagle are both available and connected to me viscerally through the rose gateway. <3 Thank you Robert, you honor me with your poignant use of this photo in this way.

Much Love,
Kirsten

DavidInSeattle said...

Robert,
You really do have a great gift with words. Rose Gate poem: Loved every nuance.

Patricia said...

Robert,
Such nice needed energy in the reading of this poem for me. I can relate to the line: You'll grow by diminishing, into a world vaster then the one you knew before... A master stroke of wording to me.
Patty

Irène said...

Fantastic sycronicity. This very morning I had my breakfast tea sitting in my garden if front of a clay potted rose bush because a lovely pink bud called out to me through sunshine from the corner of my eye. I was just sipping my tea & wondering what it would be like to be this little rose, wondering what this little bud had to do with me or I to her and so I traveled into the bud. This was not a deliberate journey. And now reading this post I realize (even more) that I'm always dreaming. Every minute of the day, there is a part of myself that travels & explores. Thanks.

Robert Moss said...

Red Rose - all roses are welcome here! What is your native language? Sometimes I write poems in French.

Robert Moss said...

Nina - As always, I enjoy your stories and in this case the legend of St Christopher - though he was very far from my mind when I had the experiences that gave me this poem!

Robert Moss said...

Savannah - I love your long-stemmed visas or entry tickets!

Robert Moss said...

Kirsten - Ah, that is beautiful. When I saw your glorious rose photographs I felt sure that you, too, had used the rose gate.

Robert Moss said...

Patty and David - thank you.

Irene - grand to see a sweet synchronicity budding here.

Unknown said...

Breathtaking. The sight of this rose, reminds me of when I was a little girl, getting up very early in the morning and going out to the roses in the front of our house. I would dive into the beauty, fragrance and color....it really was a portal for my soul. I love roses and grow them now and they still hold the same power for me.

Thank you Kirsten and Robert!

Robert Moss said...

Naomi - Yes, indeed. A portal for the soul.