Roses

     Roses are the flowers that you give to a pretty lady to let her know that you care. Roses like to be pruned, they like a little fertilizer, they like a little love. When I see a flower shop I like to stop and look at the different colored roses in the window. When I see a rose bush I think about how much care has been given to it based on how tall it is, or how much it is blooming.
     All of that is changing for me. Korea, at least the small area where I live, is sick with roses. There is a certain variety of climbing rose here that vomits up from the ground and sprays the scenery with its hot pink petals. The fragrance of these flowers isn't very strong, but you do eventually get tired of seeing these masses of hot pink flowers everywhere.
     The worst part is, they are largely untended and unnoticed. The bushes are so unruly that they must go years between the prunings. Koreans walk along the walkways that these roses are attempting to choke, and they are oblivious to the thorny tendrils spilling into the path. They pay no attention to the beautiful flowers, of the late spring, or the rain of petals of the early summer.
     "They're common."
     "They are everywhere."
     "They are nothing special."
     If roses are nothing special, what am I supposed to buy my girlfriend? If roses grow almost wild, what happens to the pride, sweat, and blood that my mom has poured into her rose garden year after year? If roses are common can I start a flower shop and make my fortune selling dandelions?

roses