Summer Rose
Stunning (Across The Universe)
Missed Connections from Portland
Rain drops
adorn rose petals
like sequins
Summer
in her ornate dress
Sunsets
shimmering on threads of light
Dawn
in her bursting regalia
Her Two Cents
Today I discovered a summer rose growing in the jungle of my side yard. Roses were never I flower I paid much attention to until I met Margarete Cassalina five years ago. Margarete is beautiful, fun, engaging, and the epitome of positivity. She loves drinking wine, laughing, and reveling in the mysteries of the universe. Margarete’s parties are for the record books and she’s an all-around wonderful person to be around. When meeting her for the first time you would never guess that her young daughter lost her life to Cystic Fibrosis and that she lives every day with the reality of the same happening to her son. No one would find fault if she chose to be bitter, angry, depressed, negative. But that’s not how she rolls. The first time I saw her license plate, “65 ROSES,” I was puzzled. She told me that it’s often what young children call the disease. They have cystic fibrosis. They have 65 roses. 65 roses sounds like a nice, pretty place and one that little mouths and tongues, ears and eyes, would grasp hold of when trying to make sense of the language of doctors and nurses, moms and dads. I live in the place where Margarete’s young daughter died, a few short blocks from the cheerful primary colors of the children’s hospital. Like a child’s misconstrued words, it’s designed to provide familiar comfort where confusion and fear abound. These constructs might not always succeed in their mission but sometimes they do. Since meeting Margarete roses have taken on a new meaning, and when a wild one appears I send my easy breath to those children far away and so close by.
Her Two Cents from the Missed Connections Chief Bottle-Finder:
