Oct 15

Oct 15 GOD'S OWN ROSE by Jenois Harris

Jenois Harris

Poetry

A man stood at the door to the flower shop

No shoes on his cracked dirty feet.

He asked

Miss can you spare a quarter

So I can buy something to eat

Aghast I stared at the figure

Matted hair

Ragged Clothes

I don’t have money to give you

I spat at him

I have just enough to buy a rose

A rose will help me feel happy

A rose will help chase away

Scenes of sorrow and sadness

I see around me everyday

A rose’s beauty and fragrance

Will help lift my soul

If I give you money

Even one quarter

I won’t have enough to buy a rose

I hurried into the flower shop

To buy my beautiful rose

But I couldn’t forget the beggar

Dressed in ragged tattered clothes

I thought of his futile existence

Was he berift of mind and soul

Though

Ragged and tattered

Matted and battered

I thought

Is he still not God’s own Rose

I rushed out of the flower shop

Without buying a rose

To search for the dirty figure

Dressed in ragged tattered clothes

I found him on a bus bench

Shivering in the cold

I took his hand

Gave him the money

And said

I just found my beautiful rose

Jenois Harris

Jenois (Gen-wa) Lois Harris, resides in Hemet, California with one of her two adult sons and his marmalade cat, Nanette. She says that she and her son tell everyone the cat is French because she has a French sounding name, however, the cat is actually Mexican, having been brought over the border at San Ysidro by a neighbor when he returned to California after visiting his family in Tijuana, Mexico.

An Army brat, Jenois spent the first years of her life in her home state of Louisiana, leaving at eight years of age to travel with her mother, step-father, and eight siblings to Germany, Texas, Massachusetts, and California. Jenois is the eldest of the eight siblings.

She credits her interest in writing to her second grade teacher who noticed early on that she has an ability to use words creatively.

One day, on the playground, I had a heated argument with a classmate. She called my mother a sheep. I called her mother a peach. Our teacher heard us and sent us to the principal’s office. As punishment for our so called deviant language we were both assigned days to sit in the principal’s office and cut out newspaper clippings. The principal’s office was warm and the principal let me eat my lunch, a tuna sandwich, early. Even though I liked the principal’s office, I was afraid of the principal so as long as I was enrolled in that school, I made sure that I never got into another argument with anyone or used language that would land me in his office again.

The teacher who turned us in was a kind and caring person. She told me I have a high mind and encouraged me to write my thoughts in a little composition notebook she gave me. Even though she whipped my scrawny little legs when I stayed past recess, stretched out, daydreaming under a sycamore tree, I forgave her because in my heart I know her only wish was for me to live a good life. I'll always remember her with gratitude.

After spending thirty-one years working Civil Service jobs in the Los Angeles County area and fourteen years as a Realtor in the Inland Empire, Jenois is no longer daydreaming. She is putting pen to paper and while she says she is not ready to write the great American novel, she does want to write stories that interest readers.

Jenois can be contacted at https://jenoisexpresses.me/contact