15 Bahman 1404
Quatrain 13 of 75
“Look to the Rose that blows about us—"Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:
At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."”
Reflection · Winter 1404
The garden in winter is stripped of the rose's treasure — the petals are long gone, the fragrance is memory, the laughing has stopped. But the tassel that was torn, the purse that was emptied — these have become the dark, rich, alive material of the frozen soil. Next spring another rose will tear her tassel and throw. And she will be laughing, partly, into the garden that last spring's rose built.
In winter, holding this verse, you are holding the compressed record of every rose that ever laughed and threw. You are sitting in the middle of all that throwing. It went into the ground. It is the ground. It is what you are standing on. The rose laughed. That laugh is still in the air, somewhere. Residue of joy doesn't disappear; it becomes the texture of a place.