Not for nothing are these called climbing roses. I leaned out a second-floor window to take this photograph. While I enjoy the view from on high, I miss the full effect when I'm more earth-bound.
Every year at blooming time — the main flowering season in late May and the lesser one in September — I ponder the lesson in this. A reminder to train my eyes upward? To have perspective?
Second bloom means second chances, a bonus, what ought not to arrive but somehow, miraculously, does. In a time of year more associated with fading and dying, these flowers are just coming to life. Maybe that's why there are second blooms — for the romantics among us who like to pretend there are messages in nature.
