the rambling rose and all her beguiling promises

This is the season when Rosa multiflora, the indomitable conqueror of roadsides and wastelands, the one who can render a pleasant meadow into an impassable, laceration-producing wall of arching, spreading, canes, puts out its flowers. Everywhere there are curtains and drifts of small, white-and-yellow blossoms, with a fragrance so intense that you breathe it in and begin to float. The whole rest of the year it's thorns and You Shall Not Pass, but right now it's Come To Me And Stay Awhile My Love.

"It's worth a little blood, isn't it? You can cede a little ground, can't you? To enjoy this moment with me now?" says the rambling rose.