THE YELLOW ROSE GARDEN
Golestān-e Zard
Yellow
In the morning gloam, there is, at first, silence.
The sea fog lingers and like spectral ships
Bog cotton heads sag as moisture
Drips.
Then out of the mist, a coloured gleam,
*ǵʰelh₃ -, yellow's root from Badakhshan skips,
West, with merchants' lapis lazuli and language
Trips.
Yellow
Vibrant Gorse with coconut scent
Pulling the warped boreen ajar
Above the fog a seldom heard churring call
ṣfr.
Arabic root for a pale colour, also a void
To whistle; an unseen nightjar
Tormentil underfoot; pure gold
aṣfar.
Yellow,
With warming sun the fog abates.
Bird’s foot trefoil and buttercups sheath,
Meadow and creeping, and kidney vetch
Beneath.
Along the path majestic weeds: sowthistle,
Hawksweed, dandelion and ragworth wreath
A sometime unwelcome blaze on bog myrtle’s
Heath.
Yellow,
Once In Ériu’s wooden heart, Beltaine's speckled light
A maypole of avens and charlock train
Black medic, and black magic
Reign.
The meandering stream through bowers of imperial Iris,
Where cowslips, pimpernel, and tutsan frame
With celandine and laburnum, a golden
Rain.
Yellow
Across ebb sands below a midden dance, hawkbit
Then silverweed, a rose by any other name array
Amongst the radishes and cabbage
Midday.
I pause, a gnomon on the landscape,
Seeking, searching, for a thruway
To a yellow rose garden of
May.
Yellow
Once, in another rose garden in Shiraz,
I sought out Saadi’s grave; the Sufi’s rapture
Of harmony in his Gulistan, the first
Chapter
States, humans are of one soul
And a plea that their grief is your grief, fracture
When salvation upon the seas Israeli soldiers
Capture.
Yellow
In Haaretz and other stolen lands
Shavuot’s first fruits are wove,
Then savoured without Ruth’s
Love.
Moi, a pagan pilgrim; for a pen touched
Esther and Mordecai’s tomb in a Hamadan grove,
Where Shavuot is Moed-e-Gol, a festival of flowers
Behove.
Yellow
I head home, a long way from Gaza, Lebanon and Iran,
Where there, as here, wild mustard blooms in grit,
In graveyards and abandoned fields;
Sunlit.
Before dusk, before the nightjar sings;
The yellow fields of May, I quit
But hope that another morn brings a better
Writ.
(Galway, 26th may 2026)
Derham-2026-IJMS - GREAT GALWAY X RAYS TRIAL.pdf