Rose

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.