This poem, originally published in Cloud Lake Literary, vol. 5, was inspired by this painting by my friend, Kim Nilsson. The painting in turn called to mind the island setting of one of my favourite short stories, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World. The result is a poem about peace, about choosing life even in death.
Now is a Good Time to Write About Roses “He has the face of someone called Esteban.” Gabriel Garcia Márquez, 1968/1972, “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” this magnificent stranger, heavy and grand as the ocean that drowned him, though his face is obscured by the seawater’s relics, leaves the village folk breathless the face, scraped of fish bits and flotsam, radiates stainless sincerity, and the scales fall too from the villagers’ eyes it is a face so handsome, your sorrow is transformative suddenly you see how meagre your dreams are, how empty of adjectives your life, how faint your imagination; you long for superlatives, you’re ready to carry that weight this face, your Esteban, your Jesus, your Mary, because or in spite of being a placid death mask, impels you to dig deep for the purest spring water, plant the most colourful flowers in your dry stony courtyards, widen your door, raise your roof, choose jewel-toned paint for the front of your house, bring small, treasured relics out into the sun embark on a life of hard work and consecration; plant roses, live with their heavy scent, their deep blood red, be torn by the thorns; watch the flowers fade and fade again as you await your own withering, and hope against being cut down your whole village becomes a sacred shrine to life, a deathbed for Esteban, as bright as the ocean horizon is deep and dark, as perfumed as the clouds are clean and fresh, as dazzling as the roses that reveal the unseen breeze make this dead stranger your own, be mother and father, sister and brother, weep for all our losses, cry out for the dead of Guernica, Hiroshima, Mariupol, whose heads rest against shattered curbstones and charred doorframes would they not wish their deathbed to be a riot of roses? believe with your heart in all that you do for your living and dead write to me, tell me about your roses