Carpenteria californica & Rosa 'Mary Magdalene' 19 June 2023

Nature rarer uses yellow - Emily Dickinso

Nature rarer uses yellow

Than another hue;

Saves she all of that for sunsets,—

Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,

Yellow she affords

Only scantly and selectly,

Like a lover's words.

If a person can be defined by a colour I would say that my Rosemary represented white.  White and blue were her favourite colours. When we were married in Coyoacán, Mexico she wore a Mexican white dress with little blue birds. A few months before she died in 9 December 2020 she wore the dress which was in perfect condition and fit her well.

July 2020

But it was my discovery of the single tea rose, Rosa ‘Mrs Oakley Fisher’ that opened her eyes to the colour. Mrs. Oakley Fisher became our joint favourite rose especially when Rebecca wore it with a white sailor dress I found in the Cancún Sanborns.

Today, a rainy day that has made me more melancholy, I brightened up when I noticed that Rosemary’s Carpenteria californica was in full bloom with its yellow anthers. Next to it was a lovely Rosa ‘Mary Magdalene’. This English Rose has a scent that the English call myrrh. Many who are rosarians say the scent is medicinal. Rosemary and I loved it thinking that to enjoy that scent one has to be a snob. And snobs we were.

Smelling Rosemary and myrrh

The little bit of yellow gives me the opportunity to place here an Emily Dickinson poem that I have used before. 

Nature rarer uses yellow

More Emily Dickinson

Luck is not chance 

T is iris sir 

The white heat

I tried to be a rose 

nature rarer uses yellow 

The Tulip

Nor would I be a poet 

November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf