White Roses
You cisterns sequestering white-shadowed air
As still and pure as aquifer under rock,
You vespiaries brooding combs of quietness
Within the shelter of your papery cups,
So crystalline, so pure your essence is
Of things immortal, unobtainable,
It has the power to re-configure us,
To instigate a deeper thirstiness.
Roses, white roses growing by the wall,
Let me stay by you and build a hermitage
Though the sky blackens and your petals fall,
Prick my sullen heart and let me drink
From your white grails a shadow of the unslakeable.
size of my life
As the great befurred chamberlains
Thronging with peerless hums
Descend on state visits
To the palace of roses, a dit -
A miniscule virgule - darts
Among them, a speck
Against these walls so sheer,
Battlements of the horns of plenty,
Where it also partakes, enters.
Susan Irvine teaches a course on using smell as material at the Royal College of Art, London. She has published a novel, Muse, and a short story collection, Corpus, both with UK imprint, Quercus.