call for poems

 just sent the following, late version to a poem; five grand for the win. really still not sure if this poem is perfected, but like this late version off the cuff after not looking at for awhile

Ode to the Rose

Come, let us talk of the perennial flowering from a family

of thousands of cultivars; forms and shapes

so strikingly dissimilar that as we gained

familiarity with its form,

subdivisions were required for

a diversity unparalleled—

where evolutionary biologists

to this day attempt to answer how

such evolved fruit so contrastingly—

peaches, plums, cherries, berries and more—

from the Latin rosa, through the Persian to the Vedic;

native around the globe, its significance in culture

pervades the vast majority of our societies

sweetly as its scent.

Leaves borne alternately and pinnate—

leaflets and stipules in serrated margin;

mostly five petaled, some only four;

divided into lobes, sepals beneath petals,

appearing as green points.

All parts edible raw and flush with Vitamin C,

sometimes into jellies, jams, or syrups for tea;

a distinctive flavor used in the world’s cuisine,

candied or turned into creams for confectionery;

used as medicine and in practices of spirituality;

its volatile ingredients pressed

for such intimate products as cosmetics to being

used as hedging and landscape utility—

or simply the commercial cut crop kept cool

until ready for display at point of sale;

the name artists know can be found in the rack

or on the shelf—the tint and shade of blood

from a goddess.

Dating to the Late Eocene to Mesopotamia,

its hip with its hundred and fifty or so seeds

eaten by birds and dispersed, where today's

originate from an old blush of 18th-century Asia,

patronized by an empress from Europe,

propagating collections now becoming innumerable. 

Where gods and goddesses protect the bodies of heroes

with its immortal oil, bedding them among blossoms,

or instructing those transformed to beasts

to eat its petals and return—

ancient history become symbol:

Beauty, bliss, joy, pleasure, love, life, and elegance;

praise, prayer, pride, secrecy, and silence;

wine, wisdom, woman, and worldly success;

charity, martyrdom, mercy, victory and love divine;

“I am true; love me, and discover it,” it says

in exchanges on St. Valentine’s Day.

Grace, desire, pure and inclined to love; hope, promise,

reward of virtue and secret to immortality;

blissful spirit, heavenly rejoice of faith;

from fingers of the dawn

to knowledge and law

signifying truth to Buddha-hood.

Window to eternity, are we worthy of you?

A new day, where each appearance

reminds us to be our best.