A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

1. O night,
   you take the petals
   of the roses in your hand,
   but leave the stark core
   of the rose
   to perish on the branch.

poet: Hilda Doolittle

2. Listen
Have you heard about the rose that grows
Never really knowing what it knows?
Standing in the heat
Fighting through the concrete
(And the petals keep dropping.)
Oh its thorns are sharp
Like a razor’s edge
But they can’t stop the petals
because they’re too far out on the ledge
Have you heard about the rose that grows
Never really knowing that it knows
Standing in the heat
Fighting through the concrete
(And the petals keep dropping.)
You’ve got to grow strong
You’ve got to stay strong
(And the petals keep dropping.)

poem by Frances Farrell

3. Women have no 
beginning
only continual
 flows.
Though rivers flow
women are not
 rivers.
Women are not 
roses
they are not oceans
 or stars.
i would like to tell
 her this but
i think she 
already knows.

poet: Ana Castillo