Nothing Of The Roses

Nothing Of The Roses

Some frogs become lethargic on the first coldwinter nights

Others crawl like comatose white roses under ice

Though roses do not bleed to death when their veins break by frost

Yet after frost dethrones the rose the leaves shatter to loss

And when the resurrected sun approaches what is cold

And touches what the queen of ice has kept from growing old

All that will be found under the soil and grass and ground

Are carrions and croaking frogs, bellowing aloud

But nothing of the roses

Nothing left to keep them proud

Nothing of the petals or the pearls of silken sound

Nothing left for us to decorate the morn of spring

Nothing left for us to aid in mournful suffering.