I grow a lot of roses. Not carefully, not with any plan, but because someone gives me a cutting or a cane or I see a plant in a garden centre that looks like it would be happy in our wild chaotic garden. And this time of year, the roses are blooming with such abandon. I was doing something else when I noticed the moss roses in the vegetable garden, particularly the lighter pink ones, the canes taking over one entire end. And why not? The bees love them. The story of the woman who left a few canes on the seat of my truck while I was in a meeting 35 years ago lives in them, though she is long dead. And the deeper pink ones, also from her, are full of bees this morning. There are also sprays of an unnamed climber and some richly scented “Reine des Violettes”, Queen of the Violets, smelling like the winds of heaven.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
I have several musical instruments but can’t play any of them well. I have a stack of books I am eager to read. I was so busy this morning, watering, gathering big buckets together to carry mulch up to the pots of tomatoes thriving on the upper deck, and then I stopped for the roses, their unassuming beauty. And why not? Everything else can wait. And will. As I arranged the stems in a jug of cool water, a few flowers fell apart in my hands, falling to the floor. I bent down and brushed up the petals happily. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Note: the lines are Rumi’s, from “A Great Wagon”, in Coleman Barks’ translation.
