ROSES!

  It’s like returning to a discarded lover who stayed faithful through all those years.  I was just bored with you.  You were so damn flowery.  Decades ago, I was told to spray you with chemicals to stop the mildew, blackspot, you name it, ‘to keep them clean’.  I never did.  But now I see you once more and find that in fact you have such variety you are never boring.  The east wall is papered with Pink Perpetue whose petals neatly fall, and Zephirine Drouhine, garish girly pink but scented, and another red.  They were here when we came.  They get black spot, like beautiful...