Healing Homesickness in my April Rose Garden

Just Joey - a strange name for a rose, April 2024

After plentiful rain, no matter whether real or chemtrail induced, the garden is verdant and happy, all plants rush to outgrow each other, grass as tall as me, new trees hide on the flower beds... And roses. All these roses. I have more than 40 rose bushes by now, and decided not to add any new ones unless they are fragrant... Roses are like pets - they need food and water, and loving, tender care. And they pay back with enormous, profuse blossoms. But my first poem is not about roses, but rather the rosarians, and their centuries of bioengineering" - patient cross-pollinating rose varieties and watching them grow to pick the best samples and then repeat, until perfection smiles from the bush...

Oregold, April 2024

Oregold is truly golden and glorious, splendid blossom on short stem...

It seems that researchers started to check out the DNA and spectral content of roses in their never-ending quest for perfectly knowing everything about everything:

• "Molecular Evidence for Hybrid Origin and Phenotypic Variation of Rosa Section Chinenses" by Chenyang Yang,Yujie Ma,Bixuan Cheng,Lijun Zhou,Chao Yu *ORCID,Le Luo,Huitang Pan andQixiang Zhang published in August 2020 in Plant Genetics and Genomics (https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/11/9/996) - two different wild varieties of chinese roses gave rise to a multitude of varieties through cultivation.
• "Determination of Flavonoids and Carotenoids and Their Contributions to Various Colors of Rose Cultivars (Rosa spp.)" by Huihua Wan, Chao Yu, Yu Han, and Qixiang Zhang in Frontiers of Plant Science (February 2019). https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Flower-phenotypes-of-six-rose-cultivars-during-flower-development-Seven-developing_fig1_331043392. A review of color hues and intensity in six different rose varieties

Pop Art is quite small, less than a teacup, with a green button nose, April 2024

I admire the new rose bushes I plated last year - Pop Art, Moonstone, Crescendo, and Fun in the Sun that fades from warm amber yellow into pale clotted cream. . . 

"Fun in the  Sun" as it first opens is sometimes almost orange, April 2024

My garden is the perfect antidote for displacement. I wrote some poems about being lost after leaving the land of my ancestors that I did not know I cherished so much, when I lived there, but started to appreciate tremendously after my departure...  I'll space the poem out between rose blossoms, so reading it will be like strolling through my garden and listening to mockingbirds. Ah, I forgot, the heavenly fragrance of orange blossoms fills the garden this spring of multi-sensory delights....

Fun in the Sun- fades to pink, April 2024

Fun in the Sun, grandiflora rose is pinkish yellow, 

or sometimes yellow, depending on the soil, April 2024

Peace fades to being spotted, still cute with polka-dots.

A bush-full of "Peace" never disappoints with the profusion, size and color...

On Healing Homesickness

I crossed the ocean, mountains and deserts

to make this trade. Purple clover Trifolium 

of Polish meadows – for Montreal’s white Trillium. 

The song of the nightingale in a lilac bush at midnight

for the mockingbird in the red hibiscus at dawn.

The buzz of hornets – for hummingbird wings – 

now, that’s an improvement! Their feathers glisten

like jewels at noon. But there is more. Just one week 

of soft klapsy pears, sweet juice dripping down

my chin in Grandma’s orchard – for six months 

of pink grapefruit picked fresh off my own tree.

I think this delicate cream rose is "Faith" - one of my oldest bushes, still going strong.

Would I prefer removing pits from sour cherries,

a juicy job staining my six-year-old fingers 

to peeling pomegranates, freezing ruby arils  

for next winter’s feast?  Would I rather nibble on golden 

grapes off the trellis or cook strawberry preserves 

for the whole family – syrup of half water, half sugar, 

one glass per kilo of ripe fruit, simmering for 20 minutes 

daily for 3 days. The fruit must remain clear, red and 

fragrant while I keep removing szumowiny – dregs

that gather atop the boiling liquid like the dregs 

of society that rise to the top of politics and media.

French Perfume, so fragrant, with delicate white edges of soft pink petals

Beautiful longish wine-glass shaped buds open into full soft pink flowers.

French perfume, as it opens it looks like a tea cup for a bit... 

I traded two months of sunlight in Polish countryside

for a whole year of brightness under the pristine 

cupola of my California Paradise. Do I prefer the 

cloudless expanse of the bluest azure to the grayish,

pale skies, covered in mist more often than not? 

White sage and blue wooly stars in the Wash 

replaced marguerite daisies and cornflowers 

by the sandy path between fields of potatoes and rye.

This, I do miss – maki, chabry i rumianki. 

Double Delight has vivid two-color petals

California poppies are bright orange, not vermillion red. 

They bloom in early April, not July. Dragonflies are huge 

and orange, not blue. Still, they hover above sparkling

waters of a narrow creek just the same. Does it matter 

that I watch an orange monarch, not a blue queen’s page 

butterfly? The haphazard flight pattern is as delightful, 

the transience it evokes as nostalgic, regardless of color. 

My oldest bush "Love" is two-color, and blooms among pomegranate leaves.

Another "Love" in full sunlight, it is a bit more wine-red and off white, the photo has too much yellow in it, but almost good...

Two-color "Love" with white-veined vermillion red petals, so pretty and so abundant.

I’m at home in my garden as much as I was 

in the orchard of my Grandpa, climbing the walnut tree 

to read my book, hiding between its solid boughs, 

making pretend soup in pretend kitchen under a tall 

chestnut tree, weaving dandelion wreaths to crown myself 

the Most Enlightened Princess of Eternal Summer.

Electron is bright, "electric" pink, looks a bit pale in the shadow...

Electron is really electric, so intense in full sunlight! Fragrant, too... 

The velvety  Mr. Lincoln is more wine red than scarlet in real light.

There’s no way back. No reason to. My test of abandonment 

and betrayal took 60 years. All is done now. I passed. 

I count my blessings while listening to my neighbors’ 

country song, that seductive male baritone, on and on again,

punctuated with the same voices of finches, sparrows  

and crickets circling in the air. The same air, water, fire,

the same elements from whence we came into this

material presence, this glory of now. 

The final, pale pink stage of Rainbow Sorbet, I added the photos backwards...

A cupful of rose Rainbow Sorbet, fluffy and lovely as it fades...

This pink-red chaos of Rainbow Sorbet is close to fading, 

but it used to be orange-yellow when it first bloomed.

Rainbow Sorbet at first...

Rainbow Sorbet at first, opening yellow-orange, fading to pink and red.

Two cups of sorbet, yellow-orange and yellow-pink...

I'm particularly proud of the Rainbow Sorbet bushes, I picked them at $10 each, almost dead, they looked like they would not make and  yet... just look at this gold, orange, fuchsia and vermillion glory! 

So many buds of - this one is white-cream-pinkish, maybe the fragrant white-pink Crescendo...

Not sure what is this rose, a tree rose in yellow, orange and red - like Joseph's Coat, but that one is a climbing variety, with smallish blossoms...

Mr. Lincoln rose and rosemary.

A Spring Bouquet

 

Then. St. Joseph’s Day. The May 1^st workers’ holiday.

Crowds. Parades. Red flags. Red banners.

Even rows of red tulips arranged as battalions

of soldiers to guard the lawn.

 

Now. A perfect day to trim camelias,

their pink and wine-red blossoms fallen to the ground,

new celadon leaves wait for the companionship

of fragrant roses in a vase,

 

the pretty vase my Mom brought from Ravenna,

adorned with a rich array of relief flowers,

mosaic-like, so foreign on my California windowsill.

It travelled from Italy to Poland to Canada to LA –

a heirloom my children would not want. Silly kids

that left for their empty rooms with big screens and leather sofas.

 

I’m glad I’m here to chronicle every minute of every day,

every vein on every leav, every spot on every fading rose petal,

like liver spots on my hands, my Grandma’s hands.

 

Faded roses in a fading garden, picked for a day

of adoration, placed among the brightest celadon

twigs from silent camelias.

 

If fragrance is the voice of flowers, camelias cannot speak,

but roses sing the sweetest melodies that never end.

 

Oh, roses, my roses, roses – 

Here is white-red Love with Moonstone and fragrant cream-pink Crescendo

These new pink-white roses are very fragrant, too bad I lost the tag and forgot their name...

The closest I found is Crescendo, cream-pink with strong fragrance...

Moonstone has so many delicate pinkish petals, true hybrid tea, scent? tea.

Moonstone is cup-shaped first as it opens.

More Moonstone, with classic curved-out petals

Faith rose planted in 1956

Faith is quite similar to Moonstone, but less pink in hue, more creamy. One of my oldest bushes, 

creamy salmon pinkish in the middle, patented roses.

Just Joey, salmon colored, and tea-scented reminds me of Sonia, my favorite in Poland, also because of the character in Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.

Not All About Roses... Dreams, Gardens, and Clearing Karma in the Spring

 How vivid are your dreams? Mine are so intense that I'm sometimes completely disoriented when I wake up and find myself in my house in California instead of where the night-time adventures took me. I was so busy and now I'm resting? That's so strange... I think and start another day.  

Dreams are great for poems, though so I thought I'll write down the two dreams I had and make them into poems of sorts, too long and narrative for journal submission, but just right for the wordy blog.

On Friday after a Dream of Cleaning Vases

I ran away from demons, chasing me through crowded streets.

I cleaned off layers of black paint from an antique vase 

I inherited from my parents. See? It's smooth surface glistens 

as cobalt phoenixes dance in white, porcelain sky.

Let's arrange flowers you brought in this graceful vase -

hyacinth, irises and daisies, a pastel bouquet on clouds of sweet alyssum. 

No? How about a rose rainbow from my garden? Compassion, 

Yellow Mellow, Double Delight and French Perfume. Do not forget

the charms of decades-old Love at First Sight! Its scarlet petals lined with silver

remind you that nothing is ever simple. Everything changes. Nothing lasts. 

Let's walk down the garden path scented with orange blossoms.

Forget the lilacs of your youth. Let's smell the roses, shall we? 

The hybrid teas have a slight flavor but here's the Grande Dame - 

so magnificent in her fragrant, magenta gown.

Tired? Let me serve you Armenian tea - honey-hued, translucent liquid, 

steaming from the delicate China cup. Let's raise a toast

to timeless values. Let's celebrate togetherness and peace. 

There was a time to run. Time to stop running. 

There is a time to say "Enough!"  No pasaran. 

They shall not pass. When you say "No" 

They have to listen. It is the Cosmic Law, you know. 

Do not give up. You'll win your life back through loyalty and strength. 

Balance  your courage with the virtue of restraint. Hone justice 

with ageless wisdom. Do not be cruel. Always stay kind. 

Be careful - don't break the crystal core of your new heart!

How hard the lessons! How many failures haunt the past!  

Do not look back.  Regrets will turn you into a fierce demon. 

Breathe deeply, slowly in my vibrant garden. 

Live now, drink tea from Grandma's favorite, gold-rimmed cup!

May 8, 2023

The poem is inspired by a dream of washing a black-painted vase that slowly reveals its Chinese pattern of dancing phoenixes, blue on white. It seems like magic, removing dirt of the past, accumulated through generations, or done on purpose out of spite, to reveal such timeless, elegant beauty. There is a deeper meaning to the dream - the cleaning of ancestral karma, the hard work it takes to dissolve generations-old weight of ill emotions, regrets, despair. 

But then, there is the garden, birdsong and roses.  It's been my lifesaver in the plandemic, a refuge of serenity and beauty. I survived my bout of illness outside in sunlight, sweating it out while birds sang and orange blossoms filled the air with heavenly scent.  It is so important to be close to nature. Just enjoy life - of plants, birds, lizards, clouds. So much joy in ever leaf, every chirp and note of every winged creature. I was raised in a house with a garden, and loved going outside every day to watch the narcissus and daffodils sprout in their circles on the flowerbed, watch the golden forsythia bloom in an avalanche of petals, wait for the cherries to ripen, play with the willow branches, or read a book on the lawn.  Such simple, ageless delights. No TV, no fancy parties, just being alive in nature being alive, flowering and fruitful. 

When looking for a house in California I picked the one I've been living in for 25 years because of its large garden, fruit trees, and roses, so many patent roses planted back in the early 1950s, Four of these bushes are still alive, still blooming. A couple were "murdered" by a gardener whom I promptly fired - cut them down below the single bud, so the transplanted large-blossom hybrids could not grow back. These roses are "hybrid" because they grow from other roses' stronger roots.  At times the parent will try to bloom as well, shooting long branches out with small red flowers.  

The roses I inherited - Mister Lincoln, Compassion, Peace and Love at First Sight are still lovely, but not really fragrant. For delightful rose scents, I have to turn to the roses I planted - French Perfume, Mellow Yellow, Pop Art, and Grande Dame, Firefighter... The last two are quite alike, despite their names - dark wine-red in hue, huge double flowers, with rounded petals, more magenta in tone than wine of the Grande Dame.  Who would have thought that Firefighter would not smell of smoke and sweat? The Mellow Yellow is not as extraordinarily beautiful as the Oregold of darker, richer yellow and almost no scent. But the fragrance! I decided never to buy roses without rose scent again. 

Colors are interesting, too. Many of my roses are of a single tone - Mister Lincoln of dark, velvety wine-red, Electron and Compassion of clear, vivid pink, Mellow Yellow of creamy, sunny hue, the wine-red-magenta Grande Dame and Firefighter, and of course the pure white Iceberg floribunda bush, that guards the door with its year-round profusion of delicate blooms. 

Charmed by the Love at First Sight I inherited, I looked for two-tone roses and found Peace and Chicago Peace of white, light yellow and pink, Double Delight of white with dark pink edges, Deep Purple with burgundy edges on purple blooms, Rainbow Sorbet of yellow, orange, pinkish red changing in hues as they age, and, my most recent discovery, a fragrant Pop Art, its yellow petals striped with pink. The best of the best - both lovely and fragrant!  I have not kept the tags from these bushes, so I may have forgotten - one bush with pink-yellow-white blossoms seems to be Dream Come True. Another with soft-pink huge flowers = is it Carefree Wonder? 

This year I added some blue to my palette - small stems of szafirki and mid-size blue-yellow Japanese iris. Strong rusty orange in bunches of gazania compete with miniature carnations in white, pink and amaranth. White and pink African daisies I bought for 1$ each are still filling in the palette.  I'm very sensitive to color, so much so that I do not like black and white films, and do not go to see exhibits of drawings, which, in black and white are simply boring. But add color and the image explodes!  So here's another, more colorful dream, that went from jewel hues into pure gold and diamond of intense, joyful light. My life seems to follow the same trajectory. 

On Sunday, After a Dream of Jewel Lights

I remember us, together, flying upwards through the infinite 

lapis of cosmic expanse measured in constellations.

Intertwined in a tight embrace, we were one.  

Two halves of a divine apple of energy - twirling, swirling 

in a feeria of jewel hues - ruby, emerald, sapphire. 

Oh, how I miss those timeless days, years, eras of untold bliss! 

Language was not needed. Transparent to each other, 

we shared thoughts i an instant of yes, always yes.

We crash-landed on a small, distant planet of green forests

 and aquamarine seas.  Everything became heavy, dense 

on this continent of eroding rocks and cold rains.

Separated, we looked for each other in life after life, 

we passed test after test of  unforgetting. 

Would you recognize me without the crown of cosmic jewels? 

Would I find you in an alien landscape of chaparral and muddy winter streams? 

How could I tell it is you, among the desert dust of degradation? 

Yes, always yes, I recognize you in the topaz eyes 

looking at me  with this irresistible energy of masculine 

desire, commanding me to do, what I do not want to do.

Would you still love me if I were an ancient crone?

Would I still love the demon you've become? 

Greedy and resentful, hungry for scraps of my affection, fucus, time? 

Oh how I yearn for our return to the interstellar realm 

of jewel lights. Purified through water, fire -  lost and found - 

we will ascend from ruby, emerald, sapphire

through the sphere of gold diamond rays

ever expanding into the luminous

intensity of grace.

Patience, patience is the key. 

May 8, 2023