The Poet's Life As Rose

My life is a brilliant red flower
For all that it sometimes cankered grows.
It has such beauty, and such power!
My life is a bright and thorny rose.

My life is the color of heartsblood
That from the living vein swiftly flows.
It glints and dances in such a flood!
My life is a bright and thorny rose.

I respond like a bloom to sunlight,
Opening my widest when it glows.
I answer brightness by turning bright.
My life is a bright and thorny rose.

My defenses are like roses' thorns,
Curled close about me, in the shadows.
From anger their sharpness is out born.
My life is a bright and thorny rose.

I spring up from my own strongest roots,
And poetry and stories are those.
Given them, then I am a green shoot.
My life is a bright and thorny rose.

When my spring is done, I will turn black,
Give my petals to the wind that blows,
And enter death without looking back.
My life is a bright and thorny rose.