Ed Pacht, Another New Hampshire Poet

In the following poem, Ed Pacht responds to his friend’s description of a dream he had of being with his late wife in the heavenlies, listening to music he was composing for “O, How a Rose e’er Blooming …”

The Rose
Ed Pacht

A rose,
red rose,
with blood that shall be shed,
a rose amid the thorns,
whose wounds shall soon bring pain,
a rose that blossoms brightly,
whose radiance fills the earth,
a rose that springs from ancient soil,
that grows upon a timeless branch,
and rests upon a golden throne,
while brilliant beings sing its praise



Ed Pacht on Poetry as a Calling

"Poetry is a calling. As a Christian, I consider it a sacred calling, an expression of something other than earthly. I consider this true even when, as is the case in most of these poems, the subject matter is not religious at all.

A poem represents a stepping aside from ordinariness, a suspension of the usual way of thinking, an entrance into a realm of words that point to what is beyond words. I find this to be true even in the most trivial of my poems. Even when I am making a bad pun, I find that I am not seeing as I usually see, nor thinking as I usually think. And then there are poems that speak of deep things I can barely imagine, and these too arise from extraordinary ways of thinking."