Rose

I sit in a friend's garden.

Three men, leaning against their childhood trauma,
testosterone about computer software.
Two dogs sniff, pee and dance their canine territorial.
A bird does a fake kamikaze and vanishes
as squirrels prairie dog and skitter.

In a corner
a riot of red flowers, green leaves,
roots sunk in loam where insects fornicate invisible,
thorn branches hunger yearn up to light,
a rose bush grows.

Like all
the rose is.
It isn't isn't,
it just is.
Its isness blooms within.
With a shudder I stop and mirror the rose -

by being,
just being
I am.