The Mouldering Rose

No sweet sugar-coating here
Nor no hoarfrost to set its beauty in ice

But the seasons now a confusion of warmth, chill, and dampness
Blooming at the dawn of the Winter solstice
Blooming beautiful when long sleep should be

And now the creeping, crawling mould takes hold
A lingering grip of death as it lives the rosebud succumbs

A painless demise as Beauty fades
Yet still conquers as it holds fast the edge of the precipice
The rose will fall
Yet Life goes on whatever the season or the turmoil

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Photographs taken December 2016, rear garden, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2016. Camera used Nikon D7200, with Sigma 105mm macro lens.