The rose knows not of beauty, that it radiates
with it’s petals across any gray boulevard
in a hazy sun, only we know as it waits
in anticipation for the seer to turn the card.

It’s song is not sung to everyone, sometimes whispered
across a dark hall, other times as a knock
on the door. Sometimes it’s truth is not a word
but rather a melody echoed off a distant rock

that lies unaware of the forest or the breeze.
It is our eyes that give shape, distinguishing between
the blossom that promises and the first freeze
when it reveals the last card is the queen.

Only we can see the petals fade, become dry,
the rose has no reason to cry, no reason to ask why.