Christmas Rose - S.K.Lindeman©2011 NY USA
Blessings and berries
blossoms and fairies
to me bring delight
music and light,
your colors of pen
so exquisite and then
bloom to perfection
with each new selection,
a Christmas Rose so lovely
so fragrant and holy
a petal like snow
wafts in repose.
S.K.Lindeman©2011 NY USA
Especially in Germany, the rose is an emblem of Christ. Legend has it that the one of the shepherd women, too poor to give a gift to the Christ child, was visited by an angel who caused the herb to appear and burst into bloom–the Christmas Rose. The woman then offered the rose to the infant Jesus.
The Christmas Rose (helleborus niger) is not actually a rose at all but a perennial herb with lobed leaves and a white five-petaled flower. Because it blooms in the middle of the winter, it is often called the Christmas Rose.