Lo, How Two Roses Not Yet Blooming(for Martin and Marvin)--A New Poem

On this day in April
I saw two roses,
not quite in full bloom
just yet,
fall to the ground.
And cried
blood-red tears.
Screamed,
'What's going on?'
Wailed,
'How long?'
Why do the good
always die young?
Always at the hand
Of those who don't understand
or who have not ears to hear
or eyes to see
beauty
and truth
in flesh beholden.
Even God must weep,
I hope,
for creation yet incomplete,
interrupted,
is most assuredly
a tragedy,
for which
there are never enough tears,
blood-red or otherwise
and all we are left with
after the crying and the weeping
is the remembering
and wondering
what might have been?

© 2009 Joseph Powell

Thoughts For The Week

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. "

--Robert F. Kennedy