“Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, / Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.” Oliver Goldsmith in The Deserted Village.
One of my favorite books is La Rose: An Intimacy of Roses with the incredibly beautiful photographs of True Redd. The book was published in 1990 by Western Eye Press. Its ISBN is 0-941283-07-0. I give you all this information because if there is a special place in your heart reserved for the roses you’ve received through the years, this book should be on your coffee table or nightstand. It features the stunning photography of “a poet who expresses himself with a camera,” as it said about the author on the inside back cover. There is another quote about the author’s unique vision: “Seeing colors, forms, and even emotions, that perhaps only come into existence through the act of seeing.”
The rose is the perfect subject since it engenders so many emotions in us. There are so many closeups that take you deep into the heart of the rose, almost to its very soul. But there is also one more unlike any other photo in the book. It is a closeup of the stem with the extremely sharp barbs looking even more menacing than usual. It’s photographed against a black background with a few dew drops on the stem. Over dinner tonight, I looked at the thorns on the stems of the roses I bought for my wife for Valentine’s Day. They are in a delicate crystal vase in the middle of the dining room table. They seemed so small as to be almost inconspicuous. The photograph in this book shows very clearly that, though they may be small, they could still draw a little blood. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of those sharp quills when trimming the stems of roses for the vase.
“My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn.” A quote from Louis Adamic included in the 1960s collection The Treasure Chest published by Harper and Row, Publishers.
In Greek mythology, Hera, the wife of Zeus, was really the cause of the 12 labors of Hercules, and remained a thorn in his side for the rest of his life. Some people are meant to be the rose; others, the thorns.
“When pained, by all means cry, bang the walls, pour your soul out. Feel the pain and ride it out. Then hold it up for you to see. Let it be a reflection of better things to come, not a shattered image of the past. Then and only then will we realize that pain, just like a thorn on a rose’s stem, is merely a reminder of how beautiful life can really be.” An excerpt from the writing of Dean F. Mapa, writer, motivational speaker and success coach. The writing was sent to me via e-mail by a listener sometime back.
I was outside for a while today looking at our front lawn and gardens completely buried by all the snow we’ve had. It seems we might be in for another dumping later this weekend. Our rosebushes are deep in their winter sleep right now, their “collars” pulled up around the plants to protect them from the cold. This excerpt from the writing of Dante serves to remind me that the cold barbs of winter are nothing more than a minor nuisance when considering what lies ahead…
“For I have seen, stiff and sharp, / The thornbush stand all winter long, / Then finally bear a rose upon its top.”
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Don Jackson
