Flowers in the Dark

  

                                                                               Purkinje Effect

       Due to something called the "Purkinje Effect", the night sky makes us unable to see color. Sharon Olds opens her poem at night, thinking about her grandmother, who is deceased. Her memory of her grandmother is a loving one. The poet reminds us, we don't not need  to see everything clearly or remmeber everything clealy, to remember what we love. For her, "the rose is forever blooming." Loving relationships  endure illness, weakness, and darkness. They persist into eternity.

Birthday Poem for My Grandmother

(for L.B.M.C., 1890-1975)

I stood on the porch tonight–  which way do we

face to talk to the dead?  I thought of the

new rose,  and went out over the

grey lawn–  things really

have no color at night.  I descended

the stone steps,  as if to the place where one

speaks to the dead.  The rose stood

half-uncurled,  glowing white in the

black air.  Later I remembered

your birthday.  You would have been ninety and getting

roses from me.  Are the dead there

if we do not speak to them?  When I came to see you

you were always sitting  quietly in the chair,

not knitting,  because of the arthritis,

not reading,  because of the blindness,

just sitting.  I never know how you

did it or what you were thinking.  Now I

sometimes sit on the porch,  waiting,

trying to feel you there like the color of the

flowers in the dark.

–Sharon Olds

                      Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming - Renée Fleming and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir