His Roses

His Roses



He surprised her with roses
for no particular reason. Deeply
pink and cream -- just
to make her smile. Filled
a vase with water as she snipped the ends.
Together they arranged them just so.
Two, she put separately in a vase
for her desk. The others, center
of the dining room table --that place
they shared joys and pain
and family dinners and silly
conversations about
nothing and everything.

They opened slow and easy,
full bowls of scent, petals
spreading wide: like his love,
she'd said. Tall and proud,
they reigned over the tall blue vase
she always loved: the color of his eyes.
Four days, then five, the roses lasted,
just opening wider. You brought
me roses, she'd say passing
through the room. She'd smile
every time. As did he.

That next morning, she woke to silence.
No soft snored rumblings next to her,
no scent of morning coffee, but she
could still smell the roses. Rolling over,
a thought to caress, perhaps a nudge
into morning sleepy love
but no. He'd gone to pick more roses
someplace she couldn't follow.
Muted sunlight bathed the planes
of that face she loved so well.
His last words before sleep
of love and time and plans.
Her drowsy response, I love you, too
as they slipped into slumber.

Death should be quiet, she'd thought,
but no. Too many voices mouthing
words she was not yet ready to hear,
too many arms bearing endless food
and hugs. Too many footsteps, too much food,
just too much when all she wanted
was him. They couldn't understand,
for all they loved and cared and worried,
they weren't him and the world
was out of step. Balanced precariously
on a tilted axis, it spun out of control
around her.

Don't touch my roses, she'd said,
numerous times. Leave them be.
She'd sent funereal flowers home
with children, neighbors, odd strangers
who knew him but not her. She didn't want them.
Not those flowers, not the people
who hovered and pushed at her. She stood
strong, mid-stream and let them flow
past her. I haven't room for you now.
She wanted quiet, the scared dog who kept
looking for Dad. Even as she kept
expecting him to walk in any minute.

Sitting with a cup of coffee as sun
eased in the front window, she watched
as yet another petal fell. Silently,
as if in slow motion, cream edged now
with brown fell to the table. The heads,
now bowed as if, as if in prayer
for something impossible. Leaves wilting.
I'm wilting, she thought, her fingertip
tracing a now dusty petal on a dusty table.
Don't touch my roses, she said
when one of the daughters came.
I know, Mom. Soft, gentle response.

A season spiraled off to wherever
spent seasons went. Her roses, his roses,
now dried, the water long since evaporated.
No longer soft, the petals brittle as dreams.
A gossomer stretch of silken web
ties petal to leaf. Dusty mauve moment.
The days are empty now, she hadn't realized
how much he filled her days even when
he was at work. She'd washed his last load
of work clothes. They sat in a pile
on the chest. Gathering dust. Looking
around, she realizes a thin layer of dust
garnishes everything. Ashes to ashes.

She and her girls went into the woods,
his woods. Buried his ashes beneath
the grandfather oak up on the hill. Next spring
when leaves burst green, he'd be there,
a part of new growth. She didn't tell them
she'd kept a small bottle of his dust.
Home again, once more alone
in the quiet, she looked at his roses
still on the table. Waiting for something.
Rose dust, ash dust isn't that much different.
They can't stay there forever. How can they not?

Half a year elapses. The roses still sit
on the empty table. She doesn't eat there anymore.
Drinking her coffee, instead, in the front room.
No dust here in his room of mighty ships.
The might Mo, the ship, his nickname.
Old Ironsides - how they'd joked about
his constitution. The doorbell rings. She barks,
but the dog doesn't leave her side. When dad's gone
it's her job to guard the house; keep
Mom safe. Dad never rang the doorbell,
and he never came back like he always said he would.

An armful of deeply pink and cream roses.
She shakes her head, not understanding.
Your husband ordered these, said when he passed away
that six months later to deliver these roses
and this note. Tipping his hat, he returns to his car.
"The last roses probably still sit
on the dining room table. Time
to throw them away, m'love. Put these
in their place. Blow the dust away. Have
a cup of coffee with me. I love you. Still.

She keeps fresh roses on the table now.
Still freshly clipped, in the blue vase
that is just like his eyes. Smaller place now,
different things surround her. She drinks her coffee
curled in an Adirondack chair on the back porch.
It looks off across a meadow, up a hill
crowned by a glorious grandfather oak.
Not his oak, but one that was also fed on his ashes.
She's better these days. Almost okay.
She walks to the tree, sits between knobby-kneed roots
and reads him her books, her poetry.
Wind-rustled leaves respond and she smiles.