Sunday Salutations: Stop and Smell the (Cross-Pollinated) Roses
Rose Pictures and a Rose Poem. Today, we are a little late but we stopped and smelled the roses and so should you.
Roses and Writing
Well, our golden plan for the year has had a minor hiccup. Tod is helping me edit something and I want him to focus on that before I let him work on anything else. Bwhahahah!
Plus, it is rose season this week or something and I really didn’t want to miss posting all my beautiful flowers while they are blooming like crazy. It feels like it has been years since I did an overview of the garden and my vibrant roses. (Jan 2024 was forever ago.)
Our roses are blooming like wildfire right now, and oddly, or maybe not so oddly, the one we picked up from the hardware store isthe hardiest of the bunch.
I also feel a bit like a mad scientist (and not just from work) as my roses cross‑pollinate! The Popcorn Roses (which start yellow and turn white) show tiny dots of pink and purple, like the very first whispers of a sport mutation.
That’s how some of my favorite varieties, such as the striped Purple Tiger (white and purple striped rose) and the brightly streaked Abracadabra (yellow and red, I really want one of these), first appeared (I think): one odd bloom on an otherwise ordinary plant followed by gathering seeds and careful future cross. Given time and careful selection, those strange little rebels are bred up into the glorious standout oddballs that I love too much.
Today, I guess all the roses inspired me, or maybe DJ Butler’s new podcast https://www.youtube.com/@DavesHighLowBrow, because we have something a little unusual for Chaos Critters: a poem.
A Rose is its Own
by A. Kristina Casasent
My roses are not just red and white.
Instead they blush from across the scale.
While some darken in the cool of night,
When the moon rises, others fade to pale.
Like my heart’s beat, each rosebud doth strive,
To spout, ascend and thrum through this rock,
Thorn petals fall, roots alone survive,
Gentle lines turning soil from a block.
Then there are my favorite flowers,
Those that cannot quite make up their mind.
They are inimitable bowers,
Petals flare and flame, then fade in time.
As cream cools, orange screams at pink’s light.
Quiet dawn after a storm's retreat,
Misty beauty in a dream’s sight,
One bloom or many, each complete.
A single name, we know as a rose,
Each tendril ranges from wild to meek.
Bushes bursting with briars disclose,
Their hidden shade fragilely sleek.
Corolla lures with steep fragrance,
Then fades and cutting us to the core,
Each part alone deserves reverence,
Crown, canes, and hips to adore.
A sweet gather is this flora,
So, how simple is this prize,
It reminds us of the day's aura,
and that our very souls must rise.
What is the rose, but a word and farce,
For pushing through soil, rocks, and stones.
Surviving from the mountains to marsh,
Precise and poised velvet overtones.
Frail petals and deadly prickles glint.
Reminding us how shears cut or touch
Stamens, carpel and calyx imprint,
Yet, one gardener is one too much.
The wild laterals know its own care,
We are nothing but fleeting sheaves,
In the warm morning mist and dusk air.
Words, deeds watching mother nature leave.
Petals are changing from red and white.
Falling to dust as evening dims to night.
Chaos Tip of the Week
When writing a poem, make sure you have the time to bend the winds of fate to your will because word and rhyming tend to clot and clod. (Or make sure your husband is understanding of how long the blog will take that day. -Tod)
Chaos Question of the Week
When you are writing, do you have different verses humming in your mind? Or do you just find that the words don’t want to rhyme?
~ Anna and Tod
More IP Writing on the Way!
Anna and I are please to announce that our story, Family Honor, has earned a spot in the Annals of the Auran Empire anthology. Arbiter of Worlds has a blog post with the complete author list and more details. The anthology is set in the Adventurer Conqueror King System Imperial Imprint RPG universe of the Auran Empire. (Think Fantasy Rome.)
Crowd funding opens June 8th, and you can sign up to be reminded via BackerKit now!
https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/8b8be898-82a5-4dc9-868d-aa9a9b449f6e/landing
We’re pleased to see our fellow Alpha Mercs joining us: Zane Voss, Sam Robb (the first anthology we were in was also with Sam), B.K. Gibson (who also gave great developmental feedback during edits https://coldlightrpgpress.weebly.com/), and Nathaniel McIntyre.
We think our story has the most interesting one liner in the announcement:
“Family Honor” by A. Kristina Casasent, featuring a Ring Against the Wolf, tells the story of a Tirenean nobleman struggling with the challenge of producing an heir with his new wife.
For more details, checkout the Arbiter of Worlds blog!
https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/annals-of-the-auran-empire-authors
