The Dublin Bay rose

Naming the rose

I never understood why the red rose

grows so well

in that small corner.

 

Or why it was called ‘Dublin Bay’.

I planted it where the big fern used to be.

You had to help me dig out

 

that massive old root.

You made the work seem easy.

 

Afterwards we sat in early evening sun

eating luscious olives and drinking

cold white Pinot Grigio

while we watched swallows scoop the hayfield

 

and we listened to jazz,

maybe Thelonius Monk, or Charlie Parker,

and I made some simple supper,

 

probably risotto.

And now when I look at those

deep red furled flowers as they open

 

I think of you, and I remember.

 

when you gave me those

golden grasses in the little black pots.

 

They need potting up, or planting out,

but there’s no room for them

in my small garden.

 

They are beautiful,

waving like unkempt hair in the breeze

 

and every time

I look at them I hope

they will survive.

 

And I think of you

 

and remember

you gave me that elaeagnus

for my birthday in winter.

 

It is still in a pot

because I thought I would move house

 

and take it with me, a gift

I didn’t want to leave behind.

But I didn’t move house

 

and now it’s huge and

outgrowing the big tub

that I can’t even shift

 

and there’s no space  to  plant it out.

Every time I look at it I think

I should have potted it up again

 

and I remember that garden centre trip

in the freezing wind

 

and I think of you

 

and hope the evergreen will survive.

And every time I look

at the rose

 

I remember that evening

with the jazz and the swallows

when you said you also have

 

a Dublin Bay rose in your garden.

Another of those coincidences

that we have discovered from

 

our too-long-separate lives.

 

Whenever I look at those unfurling flowers

I think of you and

I wonder at the naming of the rose.