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| Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 17 September 2026 |
XI A Shropshire Lad – A. E.Houseman
Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.
Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again.
I did not
start to read and appreciate poetry until some years ago I first heard
Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert. Before that I disliked poetry as in school we
were given extra grade points if we memorized one. I must have had a learning
disability that went beyond my dyslexia.
Now I have
fun finding poems to match my photographs or scans. I have written here before
how my friend,Vancouver poet Jamie Reid
(he often boasted he was a member of the Canadian Communist Party), inspired me
to read Houseman’s Shropshire Lad. I am constantly reminded of him as one of my
best roses is the English Rose Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’. When my other roses
have given up the ghost this one keeps blooming. Is what you see here yet
another “boring” scan of the rose?
Houseman’s
poem above pretty well describes my life as an 84-year-old man who misses his
Rosemary and finds some comfort in my female cat Niña. I don’t have to do
anything on any given day except feed her and feed myself. My existential angst
on knowing I am waiting to die is best explained in that line – And all’s that to do again.