The Lost Roses

“Look here,” he showed me, 
“all these buds. 
I’ll be cutting off what could be flowers.”

It was January in western Pennsylvania, 
windy, cold with freezing temperatures 
prepared to stay.   

But the man who came to trim our garden 
from the fall— 
yes, it was late—

wanted me to see 
how nascent life appeared 
along the branches of the rose bush.

Should he cut them? 
I had no vision 
of their blooming

and gave the word 
that they should go. 
Was this a stroke

to blot out any blooming? 
A search for stronger life? 
A hope that cutting back

might open ways 
for growth beyond the sight 
of us, who on this January day

see only what is here 
before our eyes?