Matthew Lyle Landsman

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 until 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 lingering 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 absentmindedly 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 begun.

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