Winter Rose

I am the rose

The rose

I am the rose

The rose with no flowers

I am the rose

The rose all thorns

The mind he made

The hand he touched

The winter rose

I who was blind and did not know

Who searched for sickness in the sane

Who tried to placate not to heal

Was taken sharply by his pain

He who gave me vivid roses

Grown inside his gentle mind

In his torment he discloses

Worlds I never wished to find

I gave him lies for all his truth

And sent him to his spirit's death

And gave him hope when all was lost

And stole the flower that took my breath

He who gave a gift of flowers

Rests in quiet darkness now

Silent are his special powers

Blank his once-expressive brow

I was a coward in his cause

His was the courage and the care

He who was hopeless learned to trust

I who could help him did not dare

All I did was let him founder

All-unknowing on the reef

Gave him a lie to make it easy

And stole his selfness like a thief

I am an ashen desert land

I am a barren thorny stem

And as a coward cast my lot

With all the cowards known as "them"

All the cowards call me hero

All the heroes have been stilled

Still their vengeance sings the silence

Points to hungers left unfilled