Virgil Rose

Virgil Rose is an electrical engineer who was raised in Fresno and has lived in the Bay area for the last 50 years.  He started writing poetry 25 years ago and he has self-published three poetry books.

He currently lives with his wife of 50 years in Foster City. Virgil earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Fresno State University and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University.  He is retired and his hobbies include poetry, photography, and his two grandchildren who live in Pacifica.

Poem on Belonging

FORGOTTEN

Where have the fruit trees gone?
Pruning ladders — missing rungs
are scattered among the few remaining trees
while fruit pits are blanched in the searing sun
remembering the colonies of ants
who once marched single file across the orchard.

Fertile hosts once lined the road,
skyward limbs bowed with fruit,
building insect bridges throughout the grove.
Familiar scents, too faint to sense,
guiding tiny hexapods, providing
the quickest routes to sustain a queen’s army.

Where have the fruit trees gone?
Synaptic pathways are sparse and severed now.
Wretched scant tree branches cast shadows
that stretch across the terra in late afternoon,
reminding all—
that the aging lady has passed her prime.

Dead twigs and limbs are stacked
in staggered crosshatch patterns
slightly skewed and praying to heaven.
Torches ignite stacks, one by one.
Smoke filled skies mix with a foggy stupor, brewing
a dimming haze swirling around the hilly fissures.

Copyright © 2022 by Virgil Rose. Used with permission of the author.