Abraham Darby, pure beauty

I announced earlier in the year that this rose, my favourite, was dead and would be replaced. It made so many flowers for me last year, and there it was, shriveled sticks. I ordered two David Austin roses.

Then the dead rose made two small, burgundy-coloured, tender, hopeless shoots, sprouting from the base. The shoots grew. My conscience grew heavy. I watched. The two shoots became small branches, each with a tiny bud at the end.

They opened.

To enjoy them, I cut them, leaving the two branches...

...which have now each made two additional shoots (the weeds are lamb's quarters - they are for a Project). Now what do I do?

I put the roses' stems in boiling water for a few minutes as my mother taught me to do when I was small, and then into cold water in a Woodstock tumbler. I find them breathtakingly beautiful.

Last night I paused the movie I was watching so that I could look at the roses, which kept distracting me. Oh, for a Dutch still life artist...Hmmm, that would be a nice present. I love those still lives: flowers, fruit, a lobster, a beetle.

This morning, the petals had fallen.

...and I remain utterly, utterly entranced. I am almost tortured by the impossibility of reproducing this perfection. My eyes drink them.