At age 16, my English teacher gave me an F on a composition. I was supposed to write an original
"Idylls of the King" story in the style of the writer, but instead I re-wrote one of the actual ones from the perspective
of the Star Trek being overhead and trying to correct a situation without violating the non-interference agreement.
I was so angry that I could scream, but no one would listen, so I sang out my anger and wrote a poem. For
many years, this was the defining poem of my life.
The Garden of Roses
Why Mr. World, do you close your gates,
Shut your gates smack in my face!
I now long to be back at home to be,
At home in my Garden of Roses.
The Roses have thorns, but then life does too,
And Roses hurt only my fingers,
The thorn of life drives through my heart,
But not in my Garden of Roses.
This poem no longer defines my life. I am part of the world. I still have to fight for my place in it.
I still have to fight myself to want to have a place in it.
But my garden is no longer the place that I go to hide from the world. This is my garden and this is a place that
I am sharing with the world. It is a place where the world can come and find the value of Mary Rose's Garden.
I am no longer alone. I never was. Even if my garden was a place where I was alone, I was always there with some
one who knew as well as I did, how the thorns of life can hurt. After all- they killed Him.
