Photo credit: Joan Leotta

I’d like to age like this year’s 
gift of birthday roses, 
now past their expected prime 
but still beautiful. 
Bouquets from previous 
years have withered, 
died after a week, but these continue, 
“walking” in beauty 
as if they each day they 
saluted sunrise with their own pollen. 
A few have browned at the edges 
of their orange-yellow 
splendorous petals. 
Leaves have browned and 
crackle like paper, 
but the roses themselves 
are not only lovely 
but are now exude an aroma 
strong enough to pulse through 
the dining room into the kitchen, 
to wrap me in their heady 
scent of love remembered, 
each time I sit down
for my morning coffee. 
It seems to me that scent,
so rare in purchased, hothouse roses,
is even stronger now than 
when the roses first came home 
with my husband’s grin. 
Each time I stroke a still-soft petal, 
I think again, how 
I want to age like these roses,
velvet and strong, exuding
the aroma of love even in old age.