The Ready Rose

In the hedge, a ready rose,

Waiting, as the swallows sing.

Pink and sweet and full of life,

She lives to be a pretty thing.

What a shame her stem’s too stout,

Her petals meager, misaligned;

Her lilted leaves lack proper form,

A flower of the saddest kind.

The very bottom of the bush,

An obsolete, complete unwanted.

Not how it’s supposed to go,

Her patient soul forever haunted

By the sins of nature's grasp—

Roses right and left are chosen.

Never her, still ever-lonely,

Innocence forever frozen.

Faded youth, so bittersweet,

Idyllic dreams, where have they gone?

Waiting in her quiet hedge,

The wrinkled rose absorbs the dawn.

What shall come of me? she ponders

As her petals start to fray.

The only suitor left is death—

Oh, spare her sorry soul, I pray!