I’m looking at flowers on the table, though looking hardly describes it. Flowers from the William Byrd Farmer’s Market, they’re an orgy of color so sensual and varied that it’s hard to believe they sprouted from soil. I’m at a loss to describe them, given my ignorance of their names.

When I say there are roses, pink and red, it might help you imagine a few. You know about roses, at least the ones that come tidy and eager in a group of twelve, uniform and pleasing. But these are roses of the grandmother’s garden variety, imperfect and delectable, with petals so soft you want to rub them on your skin. But you wouldn’t dare, knowing how their fragile selves would simply fall away. But the others, I don’t know their names. Long and short, bold and tender, they cry out each in his own way, lavender and blue, sunny or verdant, spiked or sweet, noisy or whispering, orange or lemon.

I spoke to the woman who grew them as she gathered them together at the end of the day. There were no other customers, and these children of hers at the end of the season faced a bad end. So she tried to save those she could, picking one here, another there, to gather in a large bouquet that would give them life for a few days more. She couldn’t stop, choosing this one—oh this purple will look nice—and that one—she spoke its name, though I’ve forgotten it now. I could see that I’d have to intervene, as the bunch grew beyond what she could hold.

“I’m afraid I have to go,” I said, “but I’ll truly enjoy these. How much are they?”

“Is five dollars too much?” she asked.

I felt like weeping--that something so beautiful, grown with such care over so many weeks, could be valued as a happy meal would. I gave her ten, which she almost refused, before I took the prize home.

Now I sit and watch as the petals turn brown before me. I don’t know what it’ll take for me to part with them, taking them to the compost pile, where they’ll turn into black soil.