Floriography, the study of the symbolic meaning of flowers historically and across cultures, reveals that flowers are a universal symbol of love and healing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, recent scientific studies confirm that hospitalized patients given flowers or plants experience measurable health benefits. In poetry, the rose especially is a recurring symbol of love, featuring prominently in the canonical work of the likes of Sappho, Shakespeare, and Stein. In “The Roses,” we both admire this floral symbol and witness its healing properties. The speaker, at first impersonally “part of a home health care company,” provides rehabilitative services to an older woman in a nursing facility who reminds him of his grandmother. Vivid details soon evoke a more caring relationship that extends beyond rehabilitation—the patient confuses him with her grandson, while he finds in her his own grandmother’s “familiar tenderness & prolonged drawl.” His growing compassion is then expressed in tending to her roses at home, which she anxiously asks him to check on. When he discovers them dead, the speaker replaces them with new plants and, just as he cares for her, ensures they are properly tended: “That way,/I could say…as the day came she could not leave her bed,/they are doing alright.” When she finally dies, his grief overflows, as “all I could think about—/& all I can see for a block after passing that house—/was…the deep, deep red of those roses.” Thus, the thriving roses symbolize not just enduring love, but healing.
