For Sandra Lewis

We were unsure where to put the Christmas Rose,

aka hellebore niger, you brought us

this December gone. We chose, pro tem, the room

where I write, with its two long windows.

The light the north facing one lets in

is unambiguous. The other accepts

occasional sun from late mornings

to early evenings. I write in a corner

by a wall of books. With its much travelled

piano, its bodhrán missing a drumstick,

a clutch of recorders, a violin case

under the chaise longue, we call this space,

not wholly ironically, ‘The Music Room’.

Its harmonics sound through my poems.

This so-called rose – an ancient cure for madness,

a guard against evil, no more connected

particularly to Yuletide other than

it flowers as the year turns through darkness –

is, I learn, a distant buttercup. Here

its subtle beauty thrives.