Triantophyllo
The explosion of roses continues through the centuries,
Bears witness
To the incomprehensibility of beauty,
And all the roses that ever were
Are one gigantic rose, the bloom of time
And times yet to be.
And what the Greeks call the thirty leafer
Puts forth a faith in testimonial to itself,
But if beauty is its own excuse for being,
I would not wish to be there
When the Gardener comes,
To water, mulch or cut a few
To decorate the rooms of Eternity.
Hunting Again
Between
the East Bronx and the infinite
Under
the rolling sun
I
intersected the eternal why
With
a net in my hand
And
gave myself up
To
those fragments of meaning called butterflies
Who
flickered into my consciousness
Along
the beds of Bouncing Bet
And
gave me hope for the years to be
Butterflies,
so mean I, you and I are not the same
And
that you entered my soul means nothing to you
And
though I am now old you are always the same
I
too am the same
And
so is the East Bronx
Always
the same, always the same.
Roger Fogelman was born in
New York City in 1940. From an early age, he wrote poetry and for the next 45
odd years, he has continued to produce poems on various subjects, such as
nature and the human condition. He won the Morrison Poetry Prize at Cornell University
and the American Academy of Poets Award at the University of Virginia. His work
has been published in the American Academy of Poets' Commemorative Volume,
1965; the Cornell Writer; and the Nassau Review. Dr.
Fogelman graduated from Cornell University in 1960 and received an MA and PhD
in English from the University of Virginia. He also holds an MS in TESL from
Queens College. He currently resides in New York City.
