A Poet's Rose Comments

The association of the rose and poetry brings to mind that Rosencavalier of poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote his own epitaph in the rose metaphor, namely: ROSE, O PURE CONTRADICTION, DELIGHT / IN BEING NO ONE'S SLEEP UNDER SO MANY / LIDS. He even wrote poems of roses in French because he felt he had exhausted the resources of German. Still, there is a puzzling coda to his devotion to the rose. He was suffering from leukemia, and he pricked his finger on a rose, which hastened his death. You could say: Oh, what a blessing! what he loved so much accompanied him in death,0R Oh, what a curse! what he had loved so faithfully betrayed him to an early death. Either/Or - Both/And. With Rilke whose whole life was committed to poetry it almost seems inevitable his poetic symbol which shaped his life would necessarily play a role in his death. But Rilke being my absolute favorite poet, I have this vexed relationship with roses. He did not curse the rose, or his suffering, or death itself. One of his last poems says PRAISE IT over a dozen time. Marina Tsvetaeva sent him a letter as he was dying, declaring, You are not just the greatest of Poets, you are Poetry Itself. I agree. And a final irony, my favorite park in my home city has a very large rose garden next to a lake.Rilke is never far from my thoughts.He makes them bloom.