THE YELLOW ROSE GARDEN

 

THE YELLOW ROSE GARDEN

Golestān-e Zard

 

 

Yellow

In the morning gloam, there is 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 -, a root from Badakhshan skips,

With lapis lazuli and language 

Trips.

 

Yellow

Vibrant Gorse with coconut scent

Pulling the warped boreen ajar

Above the fog a churring call

ṣfr

Arabic root for a pale colour, a void

To whistle; an unseen nightjar

Tormentil underfoot; pure gold

aṣfar.

 

Yellow,

With descent and time the fog abates; I note

Where 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,

Here In Ériu’s wooden heart, in Beltaine summer’s 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

To the sea below a midden dance, hawkbit

Then silverweed, a rose by any other name array

Amongst the radishes and cabbage

Midday.

Where I pause, a gnomon on the landscape,

Seeking, searching, for a thruway

To the yellow rose garden of

May.

 

 

Yellow

Once in another rose garden in Iran, 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’s

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,

Iran 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 rose garden of May, I quit

But hope that another morn brings a better

Writ.

(Galway, 26th may 2026)