thorn of the rose

It is, I think, the paradigm, the symbol, the hyper-metaphor for all flowers, for all beauty, for all the sublime artistry of the universe. Man can only stand aside and watch, admire, humbly and quietly view the velvet petals, sprinkled with morning dew, as they dare to open in the cool of an early morn. Indirect sunlight casts deep shadows, and angry thorns stand in deep contrast to the delicate, if not ephemeral, skin of this red, red flower. Dark green leaves mutely caress the flowers, a neutral backdrop to the explosive blooms that threaten to engulf the entire plant. Nature's beauty is an unnamable mystery of contrasts, muted shades of red, green, yellow, white, pink, and purple scream silently in a chaotic garden of varieties, a multiplicity of forms, a mixture of tall and short, robust and delicate, small and big, violent and peaceful. A garden of these flowers is a larger allegory on life, the transitory and fleeting nature of time, and the tacit relationship between youth and beauty and wisdom and age. The name of the rose is both unknowable and infinite and our poor little sign, “rose”, weeps in its own inadequacy, being at once a sign for all signs, a sign of eternity, and sign of mortality, a sign of deep, deep love and a sign of ultimate sacrifice. The thorns inflict an excruciating pleasure while provoking a mystical pain of salvation. Though one may know the rose, her name is sacred, forever cast in all eternity, unchanging, changed, unmade and eternal. All of the names of the rose coalesce in one, in one point, at one time, in one space, and in the end the name is irrelevant, unknowable, common, unique. So the next time you give (or receive) a rose, don’t try to guess its name, just enjoy because the rose is life itself.