The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
John Boyle O'Reilly
She never spoke, those days. Not where I could hear. Her looks of hope and words of love were given to Gerel in warm bursts of feeling, breathing out all her soul in those sighs. There were naturally none left when she came out of the sun-soaked garden.
I turned the earth carefully. Unlike the other rebirths of spring, the smell of new earth can bring up remembrances, things old and forgotten. Things with no place in the heart of new love.
In between the garden eternities, there was a blur called day, the only part which was not seen through the black-crossed window, overlooking the flowers. During this time, we dealt with the parchments of kingdom and rule. He counted in the treasury, under the ray of dustbeam-danced light. Gold and silver and tarnished treasure slipping easily through his palms, fingers drawing a slight scratch of ink on the cream-pure paper. What would it have been like for you, do you think, to look at a seraphim when one had known only of cherubs?
I had always valued order. But after each parchment was read and out of use, I began to save the ones he had touched.
She no longer confided in me. I turned to the inscribed souls, lives stretched onto paper and bound into a volume of history. They would talk, but not of everything, and not of all truth. Among historians, there is always bias. I longed for a heart to keep in a box, to listen to its secrets, to tell it mine. A free heart I could not gain.
The prince Gerel objected to my desire to return her to me. She would not be happy, he said, in this dark, dank place with me and my dry histories. He renounced my thoughts into the back of his mind, and stayed in the garden. I came out for one time, tore her from his half-formed dream-web, and left. She would stay and keep confidence for me. He was no longer needed here.
The pure rose wept.
Is it selfish to bring flowers indoors? They will die, but for while they are alive, one can see them near, closer than before, and breathe in the aura that holds out the shadow.
