There’s a memory in my kitchen, hanging
over the sink. It teases me on a regular basis…each time I get a drink.
While I run the tap till the cooler water flows, the origin of it taunts
me, its faded petals and fractured leaves look down on me as the mystery
grows.
I’m not sure why I hung it there, nor
how long ago. There’s no clue except that a lot of time has passed
since there was still velvet in the petals, dewdrops on the leaves,
and a lingered scent.
Time and again I’ve heard it said,
“If these walls could talk…” In this case it is so…the wall
is trying to say something, but just what, I simply do not know.
It’s just an old rose in a dusty sandwich
bag…and also so much more. Once there was a reason I hung it there.
There was a day of relevance I wanted never to forget. Was it a moment
of pleasure, or of pain? There was perhaps a night of new love being
born, or a day when one met our maker and my world was drenched in life’s
proverbial rain.
How else do we mark such days? We stash
mementos in drawers, marks on a calendar, pictures on side tables, and
always we have songs. We absent mindedly leave things in the pockets
of a Sunday suit, a funeral program, a theatre ticket, a celebratory
cigar, a trace of life enjoyed, ended, or began.
But upon this wall I made a declaration
of a resolute sort to mark the time and remind me of it several times
each day. I’m not sure if it’s meant to urge me to smile or to miss
someone. In silent vigil it rings out with sorrow and joy alike.
A rose on the wall may mark a birth,
a celebration of a first dance, a marriage, a growing love, a faded
love, a last day on the job, a time of praying, first for life to be
saved, then for it to end swiftly and mercifully. It reminds me to not
take those in my life for granted, to live and not just live vicariously.
In not so many words, the writing is on the wall. A faded rose that
leads to prose…A metaphor for a floral visual aid to jog my memory,
which isn’t quite what it used to be.
Matthew Lyle Landsman
July 2008
Matthew Lyle Landsman 
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