poem in progress

 One day last spring I decided I wanted to write a poem about the Rose. So I gathered all I could off the internet and books and began to work. Here it is today after many passes, with a bulk of raw material still yet to hammered into poetry, that which if spoken can put someone in a momentary trance ending in a subtle moment of awe.

(untitled)

Come, let us talk of the rose,

perennial flowering from a family

of hundreds of species and thousands of cultivars;

erect shrub armed with prickles;

forms and shapes

so strikingly dissimilar

that as humans bloomed

familiarity with its form in the age of science,

subdivisions were required for

a diversity unparalleled,

where evolutionary biologists

are still trying to answer to this day how

such a flower evolves fruit so contrastingly—

providing us with an extraordinary diversity—

apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, and berries.

In colors white to yellow to red,

artists know what shade or tint

of Aphrodite’s blood has its

own spot in the color display;

native across the globe,

cultural significance in a

majority of societies.

Leaves borne alternately and pinnate—leaflets and basal stipules with serrated margin, mostly deciduous yet a few evergreen or nearly so; mostly five petaled, with exception of some with only four; petals divided into lobes, sepals beneath petals, appearing as green points.

Ornamentals or used for perfumery and commercial cut flower crops; for landscape, hedging and utility; refrigerated until ready for display at a point of sale.

From that Latin rosa, from Greek rhódon (Aeolic βρόδον wródon), itself borrowed from Old Persian (wurdi), related to the Vedic varəδa, Sogdian ward, Parthian wâr.

The hip, with its one hundred fifty or so seeds, achenes embedded in fine, stiff, hairs—flush in vitamin C, among the richest source of any. Eaten by thrushes, waxwings, and finches, carrying them to be dispersed. The oldest date from the Late Eocene Florissant Formation of Colorado, yet were only present in Europe by the early Oligocene. Today's garden rose come from 18th-century China, and among their plantings the Old Blush group is most primitive. In the 1800s an empress of western Europe patronized its development breeding collections in her garden numbering hundreds of cultivars, varieties and species became possible when a rosarium was planted by a nursery in a Victorian cemetery; a scented foliage cultivated for millennia, the earliest known at least five-hundred BC in Summer, Persia, and China.

Rose, Rosa, Rosetta, Rosina, Rosita—beauty, bliss, elegance, flame, joy, life, love, pleasure, praise, prayer, pride, secrecy, silence, wine, wisdom, woman, and worldly success; charity, divine love, forgiveness, martyrdom, mercy, victory. Attribute of Christ, Roman symbol of victory. Ambassador of love, rose of paradise. Angels flip in and out of the flower like bees; the souls of beatified children. Pleasure in pain. Divine love. Beauty, engagement. Golden rose. in the language of flowers: I am true; If you love me, you will discover it. Yours, heart and soul. Superior, merit, voluptuous love. birthday flower—in grace. Admiration, blushing, desire, martyrdom, motherhood, emblem of Adonis, Aphrodite, Sappho, Venus. vanities of this world. Rosebud: pure, inclined to love. Black rose, security. Rosebud, hope, promise, youthful beauty. Rose, colored optimistic. Rose crown, reward of virtue. Rose followed by a cross, secret of immortality. Rose garland, blissful soul, heavenly joy, rejoicing in faith. Angel wreath. Attribute of Cupid and arrows. Rose leaf, you may hope. Rose, red. Heroine of German folklore a kin to the mythological dawn goddess compares, Snow White. Rose, rosette, in Buddhism, knowledge, law, together signifying truth. Rosethorn, death, pain. Rose window, eternity, rose wreath, heavenly joy. Rosie fingers, Dawn, EOS. Silver rose, abode of the Hindu Brahma. White rose, abstract, thought, purity, silence, spirituality, virginity. I am worthy of you. White rose, dried, death preferred to loss of innocence.

perfumes from their oil (also called attar of roses), mixture of volatile essential oils obtained by steam distilling its petals. And water used for cooking, cosmetics, medicine and spiritual practices. A technique originated in Persia and then spread through Arabia and India, and more recently into eastern Europe, about two thousand flowers are required to produce one gram of oil.

The main constituents of attar of roses are

edible raw high in vitamin C, occasionally made into jelly, jam, marmalade, and syrup brewed for tea; pressed and filtered to make seed oil for skin and makeup.

Its water distinctive flavor used in Middle East, Persian, and South Asian cuisine—especially in sweets such as Turkish delight, petals or flower buds used to flavor ordinary tea, or combined with other herbs to make tea as singular and beautiful as one might pass on a sidewalk. A sweet preserve of rose petals is common in places.

In France, there is much use of rose syrup, most commonly made from an extract of rose petals. In the Indian subcontinent, Rooh Afza, a concentrated squash made with roses, is popular, as are rose-flavoured frozen desserts

The flower stems and young shoots are edible, as are the petals (sans the white or green bases).[21] The latter are usually used as flavouring or to add their scent to food.[26] Other minor uses include candied rose petals.[27]

Rose creams are a traditional English confectionery widely available from numerous producers in the UK.

Under the American Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,[28] there are only certain Rosa species, varieti

• Rose absolute: Rosa alba L., Rosa centifolia L., Rosa damascena Mill., Rosa gallica L., and vars. of these spp.

• Rose (otto of roses, attar of roses): Ditto

• Rose buds

• Rose flowers

• Rose fruit (hips)

• Rose leaves: Rosa spp.[29]

As a food ingredient

The rose hip, usually from R. canina, is used as a minor source of vitamin C.[30] Diarrhodon (Gr διάρροδον, "compound of roses", from ῥόδων, "of roses"[31]) is a name given to various compounds in which red roses are an ingredient.

The long cultural history has led to it being used as a symbol. In ancient Greece, the rose was closely associated with the goddess Aphrodite. In the Iliad, Aphrodite protects the body of Hector using the "immortal oil of the rose" and the archaic Greek lyric poet Ibycus praises a beautiful youth saying that Aphrodite nursed him "among rose blossoms"

the rose is red because Aphrodite wounded herself on one of its thorns and stained the flower red with her blood.[36][32] Book Eleven of the ancient Roman novel The Golden Ass by Apuleius contains a scene in which the goddess Isis, who is identified with Venus, instructs the main character, Lucius, who has been transformed into a donkey, to eat rose petals from a crown of roses worn by a priest as part of a religious procession in order to regain his humanity.[33] French writer René Rapin invented a myth in which a beautiful Corinthian queen named Rhodanthe ("she with rose flowers") was besieged inside a temple of Artemis by three ardent suitors who wished to worship her as a goddess; the god Apollo then transformed her into a rosebush.[37]

Following the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the rose became identified with the Virgin Mary. The color of the rose and the number of roses received has symbolic representation.[38][39][33] The rose symbol eventually led to the creation of the rosary and other devotional prayers in Christianity.

Framed print after 1908 painting by Henry Payne of the scene in the Temple Garden, where supporters of the rival factions in the Wars of the Roses pick either red or white roses

Ever since the 1400s, the Franciscans have had a Crown Rosary of the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[33] In the 1400s and 1500s, the Carthusians promoted the idea of sacred mysteries associated with the rose symbol and rose gardens.[33] Albrecht Dürer's painting The Feast of the Rosary (1506) depicts the Virgin Mary distributing garlands of roses to her devotees.[33]

Roses symbolized the Houses of York and Lancaster in a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses.

Roses are a favored subject in art and appear in portraits, illustrations, on stamps, as ornaments or as architectural elements. The Luxembourg-born Belgian artist and botanist Pierre-Joseph Redouté is known for his detailed watercolours of flowers, particularly roses.

Henri Fantin-Latour was also a prolific painter of still life, particularly flowers including roses. The rose 'Fantin-Latour' was named after the artist.

Other impressionists including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir have paintings of roses among their works. In the 19th century, for example, artists associated the city of Trieste with a certain rare white rose, and this rose developed as the city's symbol. It was not until 2021 that the rose, which was believed to be extinct, was rediscovered there.[41]

In 1986 President Ronald Reagan signed legislation to make the rose[42] the floral emblem of the United States.[43]

The rose is often exchanged on St. Valentines Day and is used often as a symbol of such.