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To Bloom, Regardless…
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When the bud yields to bloom,
it’s not told its fate.
It opens still,
not because it has been promised anything in return.
but because…
that’s its nature!

What awaits this rose?

Perhaps it’ll be chosen for the feet of a God,
its fragrance dissolving in incense and prayer,
to be cast away
with the other sanctified remains,
washed downstream,
silent, sacred, and forgotten.

Perhaps it will find rest in the hair of a woman,
a fleeting ornament of grace—
and by nightfall,
it will lie crumpled,
discarded without ceremony.

It may be pinned to a man’s chest—
on a shirt or a coat—
as a gesture, a decoration,
a brief moment of adornment.
But one unthinking gesture,
a passing crowd,
and it falls to the ground,
unnoticed,
or hangs its head quietly,
still attached.

It may, with trembling fingers,
be offered to another—
an emblem of love too large for words—
and in time,
it may rest between the pages of a book,
Pressed dry into the silence of memory,
a memory
… that once breathed fragrance.

And yet,
none of this may happen.

Perhaps no gaze will linger on it,
no hand will pluck it,
no moment will give it purpose.

And when time has done its work,
the petals,
one by one,
will loosen,
carried off by the wind
or falling softly to the earth,
to rest at the root of the same plant it once crowned.

There, in the quiet loam,
they will decay,
and in that surrender,
feed the branch
that one day
will bear another rose…
on the same thorned stem
where once it dared to bloom.

The rose is not told
what awaits.
Yet it opens. Yet it blossoms.
Not for promise,
not for witness—
but because…
that’s its nature.

And in that,
it is Complete.
Fulfilled.

Ruturaj
(12.07.2025)

Photo: Lovely roses from our garden. 🙂