The young earth hardened, heated, split, then froze, but still could not disorient the rose.
We kept the emails, pictures, cards in files; But where, how, could we document a rose?
Sleepless without you, nights etched in glass, I see the world through temperamental rose.
They grace the small, as if to taunt the great— such beauty humbles monuments and pharoahs.
The poetry of petals is the science of opening the hub, the pent-up rose.
With thorny vines like pythons winding hard, Who crushed what seemed so permanent… the rose?
Immobilized with longing, I sent hope and dreamed of your reply—but you sent arrows.
One day the oceans will turn flaming orange; The sky, a dusky firmament of rose.
A man may practice cruelty and thrust But these will never circumvent the rose.
Your love, Siham, dispersed by wasps and wind, returns fecund and innocent as a rose.
Originally published on The Ghazal Page
Siham Karami’s poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Pleiades, Measure, Able Muse, The Rumpus, Mezzo Cammin, Tupelo Quarterly Review, Literary Mama, Off the Coast, and Orchards Poetry. Nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, she blogs at sihamkarami.wordpress.com. Her book of poetry, To Love the River, is now available on Kelsay Books and Amazon.