In the beginning
Were dark heavens
Until the skies were touched with light
In the beginning
Was the earth
Evolving
With living things
In the beginning
Was a seed
Planted and fed
By sunlight and rain
From the seed
Young roots burrowed
Veins spreading entwining
And reaching upward
Breaking above ground
Each stem bud blossom
Mined the air
One root stem
Unleashed red roses
Red red red
Sister roots
Grew buds opening yellow flowers
Yellow yellow yellow
Tunneling farther
New branches held purple blossoms
Purple purple purple
Their fragrant breaths
Swirled skyward
Feeding
The stars
And there uniting earth
And sky
Was the Rosebush
There came a time
When fawns and butterflies
Savored her colors
With their delicate tongues
Until
In an approaching thunder
The arrival
Of man
Not pleasing to his eye
The Rosebush stood
An aberration of color
An affront to clean greenery
He tore at her flowers
Wrenching up stems and branches
Drawing inward
The Rosebush
Tapped into her rage
To power the sharpness of thorns
Man parried
Fencing her in with iron
Locking her away
As he experimented with final solutions
Still the mother root nurtured
Long arms of new blossoms
Stretching
Beyond caged boundaries
Once again their fragrant breaths
Swirled skyward
Feeding
The stars
There came a time
When children
Enfolded the roses
Carrying them off as their own
But soon learned
In their small hands
That the colors and smell they loved
Could not be possessed
Men refused the lesson
Breaking in
Cutting deeper
Until she could only
Whisper fragrance
Today the Rosebush
Bled of colors
Still lives
Underground
The ancient root of all roots
Crawls
Reaching out
Is she to be
Abandoned
Stifled
Knowing the foul darkness
Of sure extinction?
*Translated from the American Sign Language by Karen Christie
Below is the link to the original ASL poem, "The Rosebush" by Ella Mae Lentz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9biUSeHRlo
Translator Bio:
Karen Christie (name-sign “KC”) grew up in California and was professor of Deaf Cultural Studies and English at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology for 25 years. Along with Patti Durr, she produced and edited an online multimedia subscription website, The HeART of Deaf Culture: Literary and Artistic Expressions of Deafhood.Her English poems have been published in Deaf Lit Extravaganza, The Tactile Mind Quarterly, Clerc Scar, and An Introduction to American Deaf Culture. She has worked with Dorothy M. Wilkins in translating many of these poems into ASL and experimenting with filming techniques (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsqao_69vYs). She believes the original ASL poem, The Rosebush by Ella Mae Lentz, is one of the most powerful works of contemporary ASL poetry.
Were dark heavens
Until the skies were touched with light
In the beginning
Was the earth
Evolving
With living things
In the beginning
Was a seed
Planted and fed
By sunlight and rain
From the seed
Young roots burrowed
Veins spreading entwining
And reaching upward
Breaking above ground
Each stem bud blossom
Mined the air
One root stem
Unleashed red roses
Red red red
Sister roots
Grew buds opening yellow flowers
Yellow yellow yellow
Tunneling farther
New branches held purple blossoms
Purple purple purple
Their fragrant breaths
Swirled skyward
Feeding
The stars
And there uniting earth
And sky
Was the Rosebush
There came a time
When fawns and butterflies
Savored her colors
With their delicate tongues
Until
In an approaching thunder
The arrival
Of man
Not pleasing to his eye
The Rosebush stood
An aberration of color
An affront to clean greenery
He tore at her flowers
Wrenching up stems and branches
Drawing inward
The Rosebush
Tapped into her rage
To power the sharpness of thorns
Man parried
Fencing her in with iron
Locking her away
As he experimented with final solutions
Still the mother root nurtured
Long arms of new blossoms
Stretching
Beyond caged boundaries
Once again their fragrant breaths
Swirled skyward
Feeding
The stars
There came a time
When children
Enfolded the roses
Carrying them off as their own
But soon learned
In their small hands
That the colors and smell they loved
Could not be possessed
Men refused the lesson
Breaking in
Cutting deeper
Until she could only
Whisper fragrance
Today the Rosebush
Bled of colors
Still lives
Underground
The ancient root of all roots
Crawls
Reaching out
Is she to be
Abandoned
Stifled
Knowing the foul darkness
Of sure extinction?
*Translated from the American Sign Language by Karen Christie
Below is the link to the original ASL poem, "The Rosebush" by Ella Mae Lentz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9biUSeHRlo
Translator Bio:
Karen Christie (name-sign “KC”) grew up in California and was professor of Deaf Cultural Studies and English at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology for 25 years. Along with Patti Durr, she produced and edited an online multimedia subscription website, The HeART of Deaf Culture: Literary and Artistic Expressions of Deafhood.Her English poems have been published in Deaf Lit Extravaganza, The Tactile Mind Quarterly, Clerc Scar, and An Introduction to American Deaf Culture. She has worked with Dorothy M. Wilkins in translating many of these poems into ASL and experimenting with filming techniques (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsqao_69vYs). She believes the original ASL poem, The Rosebush by Ella Mae Lentz, is one of the most powerful works of contemporary ASL poetry.
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