The Sound of a Petal Dropping

 

Perceptible, but barely.

The sound of a petal dropping from the full-blown rose on my computer tower. 

We wait a whole year for that one brief moment of beauty, Francesco had said. But what about the other kinds of beauty, the other stages in growth and development, not just the flowering?

 Another petal drops.

Francesco. Yes. The woodsman who came to cut my grass. Careful to leave untouched the wild bee orchids. The man who knew the Latin names of each and every plant, the man who had thrown down his chain saw and refused to cut down a tree just because it obstructed the view. That was Francesco for whom the rose was not just that fleeting moment of the flower.

Another petal drops.

And who is to say the seed pod in itself is not as beautiful as that ephemeral blossom?