A rose was only a flower to me—
a brief blush on a thorned stem,
until I met a poet
who smiled with practiced pity.
He laughed, not unkindly,
and called me unromantic,
said I walked through beauty
without learning its language.
He told me a rose is never merely a rose.
It is a vessel of feeling,
a quiet courier of the heart,
trained by centuries to speak
when lips cannot.
Red, he said, burns with longing—
the heat of admiration,
the vow whispered without sound.
Yellow carries the warmth of sunlit laughter,
friendship’s gentle clasp.
White bows its head in reverence,
pure as beginnings,
soft as promises made at altars.
Together they converse—
red, yellow, white—
passion tempered by joy,
love washed clean with grace.
Some pairings dance with gaiety,
others hum with harmony,
each bouquet a sentence
written in petals.
Numbers, too, speak.
One rose—love at first sight,
the sudden intake of breath.
Three murmur I love you.
Six lean closer: I want to be yours.
Twelve kneel with certainty—Be mine.
Twenty-four confess restless devotion,
fifty surrender without condition,
a hundred swear eternity
in a language that dares infinity.
Even sorrow has its count.
Fifteen roses ache with remorse,
hoping forgiveness will bloom again.
Three, five, seventeen—
each an apology weighed
by depth and truth.
I returned home changed.
In my garden, roses were no longer silent.
I planted red beside yellow,
white where dawn lingers longest,
and tended them as one tends
new understanding—with care.
Today I carry twelve red roses
in my trembling hands.
I walk toward love,
armed not with certainty,
but with hope shaped like petals.
Say a prayer for me.
This is my first offering of roses,
and I have learned too late
what one rose might have said,
what three could have confessed,
what six once begged me to know.
