is a revelation. Peer
through the compressions
and the releases in its many layers
to segments that are pink
and purple – you will make out
a snake coiling in on itself to make a maze.
Follow the concentric paths
led by pointed leaves – you’ll wonder
why they travel with such determination.
You can see the beginnings
of shapes that are still inexplicable.
This black speck might be a tadpole
in a bubble of spawn
or the eye of a fledgling in an egg.
Something is waiting to be pulled out,
threaded with breath, wrapped
in light. Will you try and discover
the intention or if there is an intention?
Lines you have read,
your own lines of thought,
your intuitions may illumine a route
through these circles
with the intense blue which burns
in the flame of a match that’s struck
in a dark room.
But the further in you go,
the nearer you come to the mystery
at the crimson heart
where word is not divided
from rose, the deeper you see it is.
after ‘The Rose’ by Mae Holsgrove
