Your prompt this week is
SERVICE
This words came into my head when I drove past some services on the side of the road the other day. Petrol, food, a loo break – they’re pretty handy. But the word service has so many meanings, from a service on your car, to a bus or train service, to receiving good service at a restaurant, to undertaking community service, and more. What does this week’s prompt word mean to you?
Fact or fiction, prose or poetry, I would love to read your thoughts on this week’s prompt, but there’s no obligation to share your writing. Here is the work you shared on the last prompt ROSE.
A rose is a rose as everyone knows yet as she rose to smell one, the aroma she remembered was not there! Who had removed the perfume from the rose?
She talked to her local nursery and the woman there rose to the challenge saying, “The powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, decided to breed the lovely perfume out of the flower.”
“Why on Earth would they do that?” she asked.
“No one knows my dear. It’s one of the new mysteries of our time.”
The Floral Decoration
This year, we went to a big Mediterranean restaurant that was recently opened after being closed for maintenance. It looked much more beautiful than last time, and I really liked its opulent scenery full of flowers and waterfalls, intertwined with pathways that have tables and chairs spread throughout the whole restaurant. Although it was a very long drive that took us more than an hour, it was worth the time!
When we entered the restaurant from a big wooden door, we were greeted with a big tree and some flowers at the left, along with a nice pathway. Everywhere we went, we would see waterfalls, water pools, and some more colorful blooms, such as lovely red roses and white flowers.
In the middle, there was an awesome wooden bridge that floats above the small river, and it’s already so fascinating when you look around. It’s like a mix of a restaurant and a tiny garden in one place.
Even when you’re sitting on a table, you’ll be sitting next to a small river or a set of flowers. We sat in a table that was next to the river, and the water coming from the pumps made a small splash, giving a lifelike fragrance and a cold breeze.
Shy Rose
There was a shy but shining rose
among the leaves, among all those
who loved to tease as daylight goes
till darkness hides the day.
He put down his rosé and rose when Rose came into the room. “You may be seated,” she said. “I have asked you here to explain what you meant by “A rose by any other name still smells as sweet.”
The Rose That Rose
She planted a rose in the darkest of ground,
Where sorrow lay silent, without a sound.
Its thorns held the stories she never told,
Its roots reached deep through the bitter cold.
Through storms that threatened to tear it apart,
The rose kept growing, much like her heart.
And when the morning embraced the skies,
She watched its petals begin to rise.
Not every wound needs a reason to heal,
Not every scar is a sorrow we feel.
For even in darkness, a rose can grow,
And bloom in places where few dare go.
She touched its petals, then softly smiled,
Remembering the dreams of her younger child.
And there, where the shadows had once held sway,
A rose rose up to greet the day.
Rall:
a rose
does not last long
unlike the nasturtiums
that grow wild and last forever
no cost
The Rose Of Tyranny
What rose from “regulations” was a ‘noose’.
Tyrannical “rules” were widely set loose.
With arrogant gall
Came “one size fits all”.
“For Your Safety” was their perfect excuse!
The Great Escapade
There once were two cows rather grand,
Who escaped from a farm on the land,
With a toss of their head,
Off they both sped,
To a wood to seek freedom first-hand.
Said the first, ‘Let is travel in style!
I’ve been dreaming of independence for a while,
No more jingling cow bells,
No more farmer’s yells,
We shall wonder in elegant style!’
Said the second, ‘Oh what sheall we eat?
Only daisies and roses are sweet!’
So they munched through the day,
In a most reckless way,
While the brambles tickled their feet.
The the farmer appeared with a shout,
‘Hey, come back! What’s this nonsense all about?’
But the cows merely stared,
And tossed back their hair,
And have a tremendous ‘Moo’ of a shout!
So they vanished through willow and fern,
With not even a moment to turn,
And they vowed with delight,
To gallop all night,
Though, as we know, cows don’t gallop but churn!
And somewhere beneath the green trees,
They are dining whenever they please,
Two fugitives fine,
Who are both in their prime,
One called Thelma the other Louise!
Fandango:
A Poem
A warning in advance
When I attempt to write a poem
It’s by the seat of my pants
So let it be known
That I am not a poet
Still I write this silly rhyme
Because for prose I haven’t got the time
***
My mother’s name is Rose
And everyone Rose knows
Knows Rose loves to wear dresses
Matching her rose-colored tresses
She wore her rose-colored dress
From her head to her toes
Her dress was adorned
With buttons and bows
She twirled through the garden
Where the red tulip grows
As the neighbors looked on
And so did the crows
A butterfly once landed
Upon her delicate nose
When it finally arose
It flew across the delicate rows
The sunshine bestows
A shimmer that glows
On ribbons and lace
And all of her clothes
Wherever she wanders
Good fortune always follows
Rose dances through the day
Like a bright blooming rose
***
Thank you for reading
I hope you’re not mad
But I did try to warn you
That a poem from Fandango
Would be very, very bad
Therapy Bits:
The Rose
In a quiet garden beneath the sky,
A little flower catches my eye.
Soft morning light falls on its face,
Filling the air with gentle grace.
A rose stands proudly, fresh and bright,
Opening slowly to the light.
Its velvet petals, red and deep,
Hold tiny drops from morning’s sleep.
The breeze arrives and makes it sway,
As golden sunshine warms the day.
Its fragrance travels through the air,
A simple beauty, sweet and rare.
Yet hidden underneath each bloom,
Sharp little thorns protect its room.
Through summer days and gentle rain,
It blossoms time and time again.
A symbol of love, both strong and true,
Painted by nature in every hue.
And when the evening shadows grow,
It rests where peaceful breezes blow.
Cathy Cade:
Colourful
Some decades ago, in my lunch hour from work
where the staff room grew duller and duller,
I signed up for talks about what clothes to wear
to identify what were “my” colours.
The speaker claimed few folk should wear white or black,
and I wasn’t one of those.
But already I shunned clothes in dirt-magnet white,
and black made me feel like a crow.
She said it was blue that would suit me best,
also pinks and pastels and greys.
Not the browns, yellows, oranges – autumn hues
that filled my wardrobe in those days.
Now, when I hit the charity shops,
I narrow my clothes search criteria.
And knowing that silver suits better than gold,
I can save in the jewellery area.
But this pair of earrings is made of rose gold.
I’ve lost touch with the colour guru.
Rose gold isn’t yellow – proscribed as that is.
Is rose an acceptable hue?
These second-hand earrings are temptingly cheap,
with matching affordable locket.
I like how they look. If they don’t suit me
I don’t care. They suit my pocket.
Pensitivity101:
I do not have green fingers, but roses seem to thrive in our garden.
This is our Ancient Mariner, a house warming gift from dear bloating friends when we moved here in 2017. From a small bush, it has flourished into this
Successful Blush?
Residing in the center
Of the park-like land
Stand out examples of
Exquisite flora
Every Flower
Who dares to press a flower to one meaning?
When one is in love, every flower is full of passion.
When love dies, each flower listens to your grief.
They pick up your thoughts by some telepathy,
soak up meaning through the air,
are watered by your grief or joy.
Hope, regrets, solitude?
Flowers do not signify.
Flowers only serve as balm.
Any flower head in a baby’s fist, held out to her mother.
Hibiscus petals strewn across a reunion table,
rose petals on a marriage bed.
When I die, do not look for the me in the roses
blanketing my grave or the bougainvillea
fallen to the ground in which I lie.
Look for me in the blue thunbergia,
hearty and profuse and growing ever upward,
insisting on being seen. Me, here! Me.
In Truth: A Haiga
crimson petals fade
silence breathes a deep perfume
one moment stays true
I’ll Follow You, Lord
i’ll follow You, Lord,
where the first light breaks the darkness
and the hills awaken slowly
beneath the warmth of Your breath.
i’ll follow You, Lord,
where morning unfolds like a rose
petal after tender petal,
opening only because
Your light has called it forth.
i’ll follow You, Lord,
through gardens bright with mercy,
where every flower lifts its face
to drink the morning light,
where roses breathe their fragrance
into the quiet air
and every blooming petal
becomes a whispered prayer.
i’ll follow You, Lord,
where the moon bows softly
at the edge of heaven,
and silver light falls gently
upon the sleeping earth.
i’ll follow You, Lord,
where stars are scattered like seeds
across the endless darkness,
each one a spark of glory,
each one a song of praise
rising toward Your throne.
i’ll follow You, Lord,
where galaxies bloom
like roses in the heavens,
where rivers of starlight
flow beyond what eyes can see,
and all creation sings
the wonder of Your name.
and if You lead me
through valleys without flowers,
where the path is hidden
beneath the weight of night,
i will still follow You.
for even the rose
must grow through darkness
before it opens to the dawn,
and even beauty
must learn the language of the thorn.
so teach me to trust You
when i cannot see the way,
to hold Your hand in silence,
to follow day by day.
beyond the edge of all i know,
beyond what eyes can see,
through every darkness, every dawn,
wherever You would lead,
i’ll follow You, Lord.
i do not need to know the ending,
i only need to know You’re near.
i do not need to see tomorrow,
if You are the One who leads me there.
and when my journey is finished,
when every earthly petal falls,
let my life become a fragrance
that rises when You call.
for wherever You are, Lord,
that is where you want to be
through every thorn, through every rose,
through all eternity.
Black & White
Black and white movies always gave the upper hand
To the outlaws that outsmarted and outran the man
Men like Bogart and Cagney always did it with class
Showing us all that the villain wasn’t always a bad-ass
Wearing rose colored glasses helped me to understand
Squirreljan:
How faded are the roses
That sit upon the mantelpiece
Yellow, white, and pink
So soft you could sink
Into their delicate perfume
Yesterday they were vibrant
Both in colour and stance
They held themselves upright
But now their dance
Is no longer a quickstep
It has slowed to a waltz
The last one of the night
Autumn Roses
Thorned branches
in tender embrace
with the drainpipe
The September sun
adorns the blushing flowers
with warm colors
just dream, Sleeping Beauty,
of a blooming future
next spring
*
Thorny twigs hold on
to rain pipe security
in a loving hug
Golden Autumn Sun
Over Slumbering Roses
Blushing In Delight
Sleeping Beauties Dream
Of Petals Opening Up
In Spring Time Next Year
Lou By The Sea:
The Challenge
I’m going to
love you
forever
I told her one day.
I bet you don’t
she said
So I rose to the challenge
But when does
forever end ?
How do I know
when
I’ve won?
You don’t,
she said
with that
knowing smile
Rain
fall’s embroidered rain
distills hope in summer’s last blooms
bottling rose water
When Rose, Rose
Rose was a witch
A witch she was
Always casting spells
Why ?, just cause
Rose found a man that
she adored
Cast a spell on him
Cause she was bored
The man turned into
a witch, who looked
just like Rose, who
looked quite stunning
in his new set of clothes
The man wasn’t mad
But he gave a hearty laugh
Looked himself over
And said “What a gas!”
“What a sight to behold, man I look ugly and wicked old!!”
Rose wasn’t having it and turned him back
No more love spells for her
That would be the last.
Susan Batten:
Happy Families?
I stood once in a dank stone tower overlooking the road into York, a grim gatehouse – for many, the point of no return. The light was poor – no electricity could banish the shadows. On an August day, it was cold. The clammy walls seemed to drip. The stout wooden staircase was worn away under the feet of scrambling soldiers.
I’ve just had a quick look today at the Wars of the Roses, that spiteful and bloodthirsty series of disputes which plagued England between 1455 and 1485. It has a little of everything – a chronic power struggle, fiercely ambitious individuals, lawlessness and treachery – beyond anything the film makers could capture.* Reflecting the twists and turns of that tale would be a director’s life work and would probably defeat even the most avid film buff. So I’m not going to open that can of worms – reading through left me bewildered and discouraged – but we have used the pleasant image of two roses to disguise a shameful passage of English history, replete with plots, jealous coups and vendettas, a running sore lasting thirty years.
*Apologies if there has been a definitive film on this subject.
Hot Autumn
no English garden
not a single rose in sight
African autumn
a blaze of gold and orange
glittering under hot sun
We filter our way to the world
Rose coloured spectacles
Cracking the shimmer as we hurled
Sigh as events occur
Reach for triumph no matter what
And what we don’t like we shut
Reach for triumph
Reach for triumph
Some moments not caught in a rut
We filter our way to the world
Some things are left undone
Revealing what life has unfurled
And we want to have won
No matter what we make the most
What we’ve achieved we give a toast
No matter what
No matter what
Experiences we’ve learned from notes
We filter our way to the world
Everyone has their way
Expansive or simple we curled
Choose how we spend our day
Rose coloured world as we see fit
And as long as we do not quit
Rose coloured world
Rose coloured world
What we do we have to commit
The Afterlife Of A Name
Terry Offord, a family friend, ran a rose nursery outside Colchester for forty-one years, and in that time he named perhaps three hundred cultivars, and he told me once that the hardest part of the job was never the grafting.
It was the phone calls. A woman would ring in February, months before anything could bloom, and ask whether he had “something in a soft apricot, for my mother, she liked apricot,” and Terry would have to explain, gently, that a rose cannot be commissioned like a headstone. It has to already exist. It has to have already survived its first two winters as an anonymous seedling, one of forty thousand crossed that year, ninety-nine percent of which get pulled up and burned.
Only afterward, once it has proven itself hardy and shapely and willing to repeat its flowering, does it receive a name and by then the mother it might have suited is long past caring what color anything is.
This is the strange administrative afterlife of the rose. Somewhere in Hertfordshire there is an actual body, the Royal National Rose Society’s old registration office, whose job for decades was to stop two people from naming a rose “Princess Diana” in the same year, or from calling a scrappy little floribunda “Winston Churchill” without permission from the estate.
Plant patents, in Britain and America both, function almost exactly like trademarks for racehorses. Someone owns the name “Ingrid Bergman.” Someone, somewhere, holds the rights to “Marilyn Monroe,” a rose bred for its scent – a strange inversion, given what the name is usually remembered for.”
What nobody in the trade likes to advertise is how often the names are simply left over. A hybridizer spends a decade coaxing a stable, disease-resistant plant out of thousands of failures, and by the time it’s ready for market the sentimental reason for breeding it in the first place has evaporated.
So, there is a small, undocumented category of roses named for whoever happened to be in the room. Terry once named a coral-pink rambler after his optician. Not out of affection, particularly – the man had simply been standing there, in Terry’s kitchen, admiring the seedling through the window during an eye test, and said “that’s a good color, that one,” and Terry, tired, wrote it down.
There is an older custom tangled up in all this, half-forgotten now except by architectural historians. Builders once carved a rose into the ceiling of a council chamber or a confessional, and the phrase that grew up around it, sub rosa, under the rose, meant that whatever was said beneath it was meant to stay there.
Popes gave out a golden rose each Laetare Sunday to a visiting queen or a favoured prince, a mark of esteem that also happened to be, more often than not, a fairly transparent piece of diplomacy. The flower has always done this double duty – public spectacle, private vow and the naming trade inherits the contradiction without quite noticing it.
A rose called “Mum,” available for £14.99 in a two-litre pot at a garden centre outside Slough, is nobody’s actual mother and also, briefly, in someone’s actual hands, exactly that.
Terry retired in 2019 and sold the nursery, though he kept, he told me, three plants in his own garden that never made it to registration – failures, technically, by the trade’s standards, too leggy or too shy to flower twice. He never named them.
When I asked why, expecting some tidy answer about humility or memory, he just shrugged and said something that has stayed with me longer than it probably deserves to – that a named rose belongs to everyone and a nameless one belongs to no one, and he’d never worked out which was the lonelier arrangement.
Every cultivar in his old catalog is, in a sense, more durable than he is – it will still be sold, still be called “Ingrid Bergman” or “Mum,” long after the man who coaxed it into existence is forgotten by everyone but a database.
The three plants in his garden will simply die with him, unrecorded, belonging entirely to no registry and entirely to themselves. It is hard to say, walking past them, which kind of rose is actually the more alive.
I could write loads on this as a lot has been happening to me with reference to roses. Roses have been appearing in our garden despite the adverse conditions, and all sorts of related things have been happening. As I write I have a little vase of a few bright yellow rambling roses that grow up our garage wall, and the scent of them is beautiful. But I will tell a story of a certain Rose Cottage that happened to us way back in 2001
In 2001 my father died unexpectedly folloing a stroke. He was in his seventies. I spent ten days with him in the hospital during the ten days in which he was dying. I wanted only to be with him, and much of the time I was alone with him.
After he had died, my husband and I decided to go for a holiday in Derbyshire to get over the past two weeks or so. We just needed the peace and rest and we found a lovely old farmhouse in a very isolated spot in Derbyshire. Well actually, it was the second farmhouse on that particular farm. It was wonderful, and the thing that I loved about it was that there were cows in the field almost next to the house. I love cows because of being brought up partially on my grandparents’ farm as a little girl. It was my happy place in the midst of a tumultuous childhood.
The holday was lovely, but one day, as we were dribing through the countryside, we came across a cottage that was up for permanant let, and not just for holidays. We had not ever really talked seriously about moving but both of us would have loved a move. My husband was travelling from the east side of the country to the west each day for work and that meant a three hour journey each way. However, we never considered putting our house up for sale as houses were not selling at that point.
When we came upon this cottage to let, we were so drawn to it because it was called Rose Cottage. My great grandparents lived in Rose Cottage in Blyton in Lincolnshire when they were alive and I used to visit them often. My great grandmother was also my godmother.
My husband stopped the car and we both looked at each other and we knew what we were going to do without speaking. My husband got his mobile phone out and rang the Agent. He said that he could be there in twenty minutes to show us round. He was true to his word. We looked round the cottage and despite its lovely sounding name, it was not a place where we could have lived at all. Not that we intended to move to it really.
When we told the Agent that it would not be suitable for us, he told us that he had another one To Let in a village called Tideswell. He asked if we would like to look around it. For no understandable reason we both said that yes, we would love to look around it. We were surprised at ourselves. What on earth were we doing?
We had no idea at all where Tideswell was, but we followed the Agent and we were soon there. He drew up outside a row of what looked like medieval cottages. They had thick stone walls and tiny windows and they looked amazing. We followed him into one of the cottages, and we looked around it. At the end of it, which didn’t take long since the cottage was tiny, we stood in the tiny living room and suddenly I heard myself saying,
“We’ll take it.”
What on earth had got into me? I had not even discussed it with my husband, but I looked at him and he nodded his head in agreement. We agreed to pary a deposit and then return in a short time to sign the Agreement. This was to occur a little time after we had returned home from our hliday. Plenty of time to cool off. But we didn’t.
We both wondered what we had done, for this was a great risk to us financially. We were still paying a mortgage on our house and we didn’t have much left each month, but we did have some savings. Those savings would pay for six months rent on the cottage.
All of that happened in the July and by the August, we were moving into the cottage. No, it wasn’t Rose Cottage but it might as well have been, for it felt as if it was. Tiny though it was, we absolutely adored it and I loved it from the moment we moved into it.
There is much more to this story, but too much to tell here. Everything worked out really well, and we spent eight amazing and wonderful yars in Derbyshire. They were the happiest years of my life. The rest of the tale is not so good, but as I say, it is too much to tell here.
I rose out of bed from the jolt shaking my house, it seemed. What was that? I was dazed, confused, and my heart was thumping out of my chest. My body felt like it was on fire as one would feel if they were wrapped up in a thick, warm, quilt and woke up from a two-hour afternoon nap. My pajama pants stuck to my hips and legs as if they were glued on by sweat. If that were possible. What was all that ruckus?
Wobbling, with shaky legs, I walked to my bedroom window. I noticed my reflection in my dresser mirror, that sat by the window. My hair was disheveled. Ugh…I said to myself, “I need a comb and a spray bottle filled with water for my hair and a warm, wet cloth for my puffy eyes.” I gazed out of my window. My mouth opened wide in shock.
Rose, my neighbor, stood in her garden of red, pink, and orange roses. The sound that woke me up was the beating of drums from a band. Rose was being celebrated as the winner of the best yard in our neighborhood. Her yard would be featured in, “Best Yards Around.” A magazine that gifted the winner fifty dollars. I sighed while I fell back into my bed for some more sleep before I had to cut my grass.
Say It With Flowers
“Why didn’t you tell me before I set off?!” Callum asked.
“Must have slipped my mind. I’m sure you’ll think of something, Golden Boy!” Matty said before hanging up the call, his cackle ringing in Callum’s ears for a good few minutes after.
“Balls!” Callum said aloud.
Mum’s birthday! How could he have forgotten?! It was the same day every year and she’d had sixty-seven of them. How had he managed to forget?
He was furious at himself. Especially since he was usually so good and always remembered.
Matty’s flippant ‘Golden Boy’ sign-off hadn’t been far off the truth either. Callum had always been the favourite. Mum had never said it aloud, but he knew. So did Matty. And even after thirty plus years of brotherly tussling, Matty still revelled in the idea Callum might one day turn up at Mum’s house with egg on his face.
Their mum lived deep in the countryside. She moved there after Callum and Matty’s dad died, seeking peace and solitude. She sought a place to hide away and immerse herself in the quiet life, choosing tiny villages to settle down in, away from the hustle and bustle of urban life. In her opinion, the fewer the amenities, the better. She might let the presence of a Post Office or local shop slide, but any more than that, she’d soon be house hunting.
Of course, it made for wonderful, picturesque living. But not so good for last minute gifts from a son who had forgotten her birthday.
His hands tight on the wheel, Callum drove on, his mind racing.
***
He arrived at his mum’s. He looked over to the house and the first thing he noticed was a twitching curtain. Then Matty’s face. Then Matty’s grin.
Callum gave Matty a wave and walked around to the back of the car. He popped the boot, reached inside and then lifted out the most beautiful bouquet of roses, making sure he did it slowly, and that he had a great view of Matty’s smirk collapsing in on itself.
And what a view it was! Full of calories. One to dine off for weeks.
He gave Matty a little salute and made his way up the cobbled path to their mum’s house. He didn’t need to knock as she was already waiting in the doorway, eyeing the bouquet of roses and gasping at how many were packed into it.
“Happy Birthday, Mum!” he said, throwing his free arm around her and kissing her cheek.
“Thank you, Callum! And what a lovely surprise!” she said.
She gestured to the bouquet, “And are these for me?”
“Of course! Only the best for Mum on her birthday!” he said.
“Oh, they’re so lovely! Your brother bought me some roses too.” she said, taking the bouquet over to the table to put them alongside the much smaller bouquet Matty had bought her. “Do you want some tea, Love?”
“Ooh… yes, please, Mum.” Callum said. “One sugar.”
Matty came down the stairs as their mum went off into the kitchen. It didn’t take an expert in body language to see he was pretty unimpressed.
“Just couldn’t let me be the Golden Boy for once could you? Go on then…” he said. “How did you do it? There’s no florist around here for miles so you can’t have stumbled across a shop.”
“That’s true, but it turns out there is a florist delivery service in the area today and I happened to flag them down,” Callum said. “and the lovely driver agreed to make me a bouquet from the existing orders, sliding a rose or two out from each order on the van.”
Matty shook his head, “Unbelievable. How do you always come out smelling of roses?”
“Ah, never mind,” Callum said, grinning and laying an arm over Matty’s shoulder. “There’s always next time. Now, let’s go and find some jugs to put these flowers into.”
He picked up a tea cup. “Here you go. This’ll be big enough for your bouquet.”
***
Image credit: Pinterest
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