  Affinity
(Cabbages and Roses)
I wonder if the cabbage knows
He is less lovely than the Rose;
Or does he squat in smug content,
A source of noble nourishment;
Or if he pities for her sins
The Rose who has no vitamins;
Or if the one thing his green heart knows --
That self-same fire that warms the Rose?
‘Rickety Kate’ (Minnie Filson) no longer ‘anonymous’
11/19/201- I received the following email about the author of this poem:
Hi James
Firstly thank you for your amazingly generous food reference website. I came across it by a different route- that is researching the references to my grandmothers poem about the cabbage and the rose. She first published it in 1937 as "Affinity" in Sydney, Australia. Her name was Minnie Filson but her pen name was "Rickety Kate" which was her humorous reference to her physical condition. She was cruelly afflicted by rheumatoid arthritis and lay in a bed completely paralysed for 40 years. She was unable to turn the pages of a book or hold a pen, composing her poetry in her mind and waiting for one of her many scribes to visit and write it down.
I would appreciate it if you could attribute the poem to her rather than it being anonymous. I have seen a few references to it on the Internet as anonymous and I am trying to reclaim her poem in the public sphere! (It has recently been published in an Anthology of Australian Poetry since 1788 under her name). I am of course delighted to see it on your website.
With kind regards and many thanks
Lenore Bassan
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