We are but two roses in the same vase
sharing the same water
same light,
but our leaves never again touching.
You've grown colder
we've grown apart
separated yet together dying.

Tell me, why do we, roses, die so easily?

Our scents fading,
but our thorns getting sharper
in a world where all the flowers bloom
we are the ones to be wilting.

Tell me, why does the moonlight darken our colours?

I know
I will love you with all my thorns
and with my fading shades
until the last petal will fall
until the sun upon me
will stop shining.

*Tell me, why is there blood on your thorns
and why is my heart leaking?

Here in this redolent rain droplets saturate the ground
I watch the clouds move on, then once more the sun to come
this sparkling desert is strewn with tiny diamond stones
the air hangs in petrichor, thick with chaparral
birds drink from puddles in the broad agave leaves
rainwater trickles with steam in the sun of the singing trees
songs of doves coo cooing in the desert mesquite
spiny lizards stop for rest and warmth upon the rocks
they are ancient with tiny rounded teeth
for eating flashing bugs and beetles
here beneath the spindly ocotillo
beneath the pale flowered saguaro, that blooms
amid this ocean of sandy seas
of cool nights and hot breathed days
the way the desert breathes.

I kissed the wind with full red lips
and bathed in the rain
dancing circles like the naked Sun
I followed the night stars to day
and day brought me safely home
-the light within all light
claimed me as its own and I succumbed
happy to be 'a beloved child of the Universe'.

for those whose mothers are no more
the annual business hype of what to give
    and where to take your mother
is but  a sad remembrance of loss
stirring up memories of happier times
when she was still a pillar in your universe
loved and revered, and sometimes feared,
who taught you, patiently or not,  
the basics of survival in your expanding world.

She knew, while you were as yet unaware  
that all her loving preparations
would over time mean separation.

When you struck out to shape your life
all by yourself and left her with her fears for you,
her wishes,  and the hopes that what she tried
to give you was enough and right,
your heart and mind were elsewhere,  far away,
focused upon the future of your independent life.

Your years run fast and busy, and suddenly one day
you stand before her coffin
and discover that it is too late
for all the questions never asked.

What you have left are memories
and a vague sense of having missed the chance
to see - and maybe even understand a little -
the woman she has also been
throughout her life, behind her loving face
of a dear mother’s care and grace.