The Mouldering Rose

Mouldering Rosebud

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

Mouldering Rosebud

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

Mouldering Rosebud

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

Mouldering Rosebud

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


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

Fading Before It Has Blossomed

Rosebud

This rosebud was enticed by the milder autumnal climate here we have been enjoying, but when the frosts suddenly hit it was nipped, in the bud, so to speak.

Rosebud

This rose will not open, and the tightly packed petals are gradually slipping away, but there is also a strange kind of beauty in that itself.

Photograph taken November 2016, front garden, Staffordshire. © Pete Hillman 2016. Camera used Nikon D7200, with Sigma 105mm macro lens.