Rosebud

by Kim Bridgford

He uttered it, this carpe diem word,
And no one heard him say it. Still, the movie
Takes up this spondee, sensuous and heavy,
To see what its long o, soft d inspired.

For he was a man of things, held in his fist.
Then he forgot about them, just said, More,
Meaning, I cannot ever turn to dust.
The statues lost their arms; the paintings tore.

To such a man, this rosebud, tight with hope,
Made him a different man. One who could weep,
One who could love, one who could see true beauty.
There was only one bare moment he was steady:

He stood and waited, the past a globe of snow.
It fell into the world that he would know.


Kim Bridgford is the new director of the West Chester University Poetry Center and the West Chester University Poetry Conference. She is the editor of the online journal Mezzo Cammin and the founder of The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project, which will eventually be the largest database of women poets in the world, and was launched at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington on March 27, 2010.
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Pat Jones
Published October 3 2010