Out at the inn

The choice’s never between you who pour

and what you pour, that specific wine

how chilled the ruby red depths of colour

the fruit plucked off which pedigree vine

and in the graft of sweet on strong and sour

if the stock and scion correctly combine;

and I reckon it’s perhaps a little more

than the curve of spout and its scrolled incline.

The doors beckoned, and I didn’t bother

what’s inside - the inn is also a shrine;

you pour the glasses, I pass the hours

weaving your smile into my verse and lines.

Suppose I had knocked at some other door

at a different turn enticed by different signs,

no doubt the hands seen there would still feel yours

the roof and walls equally feel like mine

it’s no mistake, but all that’s here on offer

this tray of glasses in some random design

are these a choice, or is it all written before?

no matter; in the end both will turn out fine.

Is that a rose?

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen
and waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

                        ~  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Thomas Gray.

In the front yard, a plain hibiscus blooms;

the rose’s glamour is on show at the back.

The gardener does not enter my rooms

he knocks, and I open the door a crack.

The guests wipe their feet on the front door mat

but the hibiscus twists shut by then;

it’s a simple short-lived, no-perfume format

rather like a pebble in the garden;

a pebble splashes only when it drops

a few ripples and the surface is blanked;

the rose meanwhile preens its bushy red mop

the closed hibiscus lies wholly outranked.

But just the gardener and I see the shows

if no-one sees it bloom, is it still a rose?