A Rose's Excuse for Blooming In January

a poem

How dare you, O bush of blooms
cascading over my sidewalk,
rejoice in January when the frost 
has locked the world in gray and brown!

Pay you no mind to the suffering
that half a hemisphere bears? 
Shouldn’t you restrain those bursting buds 
and wait 'til all can join your show?

"But look where I grow," the Rose replies
"in the borderlands of north and south.
While half the earth freezes, the other half bakes, 
and beauty doesn't wait for equity. 

"Look at the Poinsettia, the Jade, and Hibiscus. 
Does the shock of Bougainvillea offend you?
And those odd Birds of Paradise with marmalade plumes
will not fly south with the rest.

"So if God gives you songs in buds of beauty, 
let them burst over a desolate domain 
for we live in the borderlands of heaven and hell 
and our praise heralds his spring."