THIS little poem by Angus Calder assumes the little white rose of Scotland, which smells sweet and breaks the heart, rather than florists' larger, gaudier version.
It is included in Things Not Seen, an Anthology of Contemporary Scottish Mountain Poetry, edited by Stuart B Campbell (Aberdeenshire Council, £5.95, 1999).
COLD ROSES
Somewhere, looking for the sun
in a cold Scottish summer
we scramble up to a place where snow still lies
and there can be an imagination of roses
spiny as rockteeth
and of light which toughs it out and refuses to die.
Maybe there's reasoning, reasoning which endorses
an epigraph for everything we've done
in not-bad faith,
us stumbling up towards cold white roses
and the shivering glimmer
of satisfaction: wearily, some prize we've won.
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