Rose
James McFarland
The ring of fire over a black sky
A fractured star, a violet mist
Everlasting dusk and the blue
Navy ward and the peal dead
The wood post in the hard soil
There’s a barbed wire fence
And a farm, a barn and a car
A table with a fractured glass jar
The lid unfastened, half empty
The tree around the bend
The fields are red with war
The sky is velvet
The sun is crimson
The roses are red
All but a York rose
A deck of ten and three
Burgundy bush of thorn
Plucked by a jackdaw
Over the violet moors
Under the oppressive grey clouds
Land above the sky
Seen through a black eye
Uprooted yew tree
The black crystal eye
Struck by a rose thorn
Masked by a red petal
The scent of twenty
Vintage and earthly
Half-blind selectively
Fierce, slow burn
Time does not sit still
It's slow and it's daunting
Leaving only dignity and only
No sun or moon to bring the light
The stream of uncertainty, isthmus
No dawn of caution
For an envy of viridescence
White rose perked to shreds
A break of daylight in spring
Will come again, for all I hope.