A Love Note

"In the split second while I saw the stem and the bud drop to the counter I intuited the essence of beauty. Yes, here I am, a little twelve-and-a-half-year-old brat, and I have been incredibly lucky because this morning all the conditions were ripe: an empty mind, a calm house, lovely rose, a rosebud dropping. And that is why I thought of Ronsard's poem, though I didn't really understand it at first: because he talks about time and roses, because beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It's the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you can see both their beauty and their death."

(Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog)

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These photos were taken back in June, before the roses had fully bloomed, and (alas) before the petals had fallen and  the flowers disappeared all together.

I've done very poorly with our garden this year. Which is to say, I have spent very little time caring for what I took time to plant, instead letting weeds grow wild. Because, (if we're being honest here) after work, I'd much rather tuck into a glass of iced tea and a new novel, instead of kneeling in dirt and heat. (It really is a tad embarrassing).

But the roses? They came up on their own. As did the peonies in early spring and the salvia a few weeks later. Lillies have crowded the front beds and the butterfly bushes are now beginning to bloom. 

So this is a love note to perennials. Thank goodness for things that grow even when we neglect them.