My son must think
I know about everything.
Sitting on my lap, he asks,
“Dad, why are roses red?”
Even before he hears me
his face gleams with satisfaction.
I scratch my chin
and watch his handsome face.
Only my son can look like this.
How can I disappoint him now?
I can tell him
how the smell of roses
can travel far in the sky.
Or how we fear their thorns.
He might give up on me
if I didn’t come out with a story.
But I say nothing.
Then something dances inside me.

Roses used to be white
like the infinite snow in Siberia
but one day when a dove
flew over a garden
the air smelled of the attar
with which Gods washed their feet.
The dove looked in the direction
of the sweet aroma
and saw the roses blooming.
Each flower had a beautiful eye
like a star above an exile.
The bird fell in love with the roses.
In a trance it flew
to perch on a branch.
The thorn did what it does best
when someone comes
to take its flower.
It pierced the bird’s soft breast.
It fluttered its wings
to free itself from feeling larger
than its own life,
covered the white roses with the scarlet
that seeped through its snowy feathers.
They melt just long enough
to colour the flowers red
from petal to petal, first
with slow trickles then quickly.
At evening the dove cooed
to the flowers for the last time,
“I am your blood”.
This is how we have red roses.