A few weeks ago, very late in the season, I bought and planted rose bushes along the little picket fence in front of my home. They are so pretty and give me so much pleasure.
There is something so elegant about a rose.
Thorns, so subtle and hidden, planting them was painful. In fact, I looked like I was in a cat fight from the scratches. Yet, I would do it again, because at the end of those long thorny stems, you are rewarded with a flower of great beauty and intoxicating fragrance.
While most of the leaves have fallen and the scent of autumn is in the air, I have one rose that has bloomed well, while all the other roses are ready to drop their petals. I've been watching this rose for days and every day I go out and smell it's fragrance. It's beautiful and alive while everything else is fading.
It's scent seems more fragrant, because it isn't competing with the splendor of spring in bloom. In autumn, it's scent is magnificent, because it has outlasted the other flowers.
My Japanese Maple tree has dropped almost all it's leaves, which has left a beautiful red hue over my flower bed. Two days ago, it stood vibrant in the sunshine. It was so pretty, I stopped in my car and captured it.
I notice details that give me pleasure and that one rose that is holding on. In full admiration, I breathed in it's scent when it arrived home from work.
In my days of pleasure enjoying this one flower, I haven't given the thorns a single thought. I felt their prickles in my skins in the planting process, but now... it's the flowers that are produced that has made it totally worth it.
"She wore roses in her hair
and dreamed of the one not afraid of thorns."
