Sutter’s Gold Rose

Home smells like a Sutter’s Gold rose in Mom’s backyard.

Even though Mom didn’t water it; the crimson, orange, yellow, and gold glory grew over eight-feet tall, loaded with blossoms in Tiburon
during spring and summer.

Mom said the rose thrived on neglect, but maybe it was the Miwok Native American earth where Mom’s house was built that nurtured it.

Nestled in a cove of Richardson Bay, Mom’s house was tucked in at the bottom of a rock sprinkled mountain with a 360-degree view of seven Bay Area counties.

Before I went to first grade, I remember going out the backdoor into the yard and clipping two or three roses. I felt the prick of bold thorns, which I later learned to slice off with a knife. I brought the
straight-stemmed flowers inside my house and placed them in Mom’s bud vase because I had to have them on the dining room table.

As a child, I defined beauty by the way those rose petals blended color from deep crimson orange through to yellowish white, like a candle’s flame.

As an adult, after Mom died in early spring, I hoped the rose would bloom again, because I needed the quiet understanding of my botanical relationship to what became of my family.

The rose clustered buds through its dark green stem did not disappoint me.

Once again, the Sutter’s Gold rose let me see.

By Pru Starr