S.E.W. Smith
A Joseph’s Coat Rose continues to change as it blooms.
At first, it is shrouded in greenleaf:
Small, packed and tight.
Then the very tips peek out and warn you of spectacularities yet unrealized
Red, orange, yellow-
all spiral-splash, all twist-turn,
rolling out,
reaching for the sun,
on and on –
This is its many-layered flowering.
The Joseph’s Coat Rose says Look! and Look!
And look again tomorrow
When I shall be the same
in self
But appear completely new
To you who come to see me.
This, it says, is what I am.
I am all of this at once –
All the colors,
All the turns and folds,
And I always was.
I am, I will be, I will have been –
Alive and bright in all conjugations.
And you, who watered me,
Fed me and pruned the wayward cane here or there?
You believed I was all of this in truth,
Long before others could see
and smell
and wonder.
It is to you I bloom first.
Take joy, and know I am grateful,
Says the Joseph’s Coat Rose.