Love Poem: I Remember the Rose
Tammy Armstrong Avatar
Written by: Tammy Armstrong

I Remember the Rose

For most, a rose is romance.
A rose is the passion within -
The forgiving flower.
The tenderness that is, pure love.
But not to me.
A rose to me is sadness,
It’s essence and it’s scent,  
I recall a painful memory -
A lonely reminder of a woman,
I never got to meet.
It’s velvet beauty surrounded her,
So pale and still she lay
My grandma.
I recall my father’s face;
The first time I ever seen him cry.
On his knees by his mother -
At her coffin.
So when I smell a rose’s love,
In retrospect, I think I understand
The beauty and the essence it demands.
For it was the rose that I remember -
and I think about her quiet face,
My Nana, 
the gentle rose
The woman that brought my father
to his knees.