In The Wake

In my even younger years
I thought no form of affection could hold a candle to the emblem rose
we’ve come to understand;
the one true love.
This rustic, floral crest was pressed
between the pages of the only book of love my story knew.
Its petals bleeding through the paper,
maybe blurring some printed
equal truth I overthrew.
It’s come to me a little
as I finally arrived somewhere safe enough
to let the pages out into the sun,
that all the different shades of love,
the potencies and placements,
are what make my rose and I as one.
So thank you to the graces
for these moments where my book can lie
face open to the chance
of being swept away or changed.
Beautiful because I see that
since my heart and spirit are within the gale or downpour anyway
my book then, is just a pattern,
made only in the wake of weathers woven by my heart’s shade.
There is no fear of what to write or what will be written,
how or who to love,
when the ink is true of you.

Deirdre Nicole Brazenall