Late September,  trimming roses. Perhaps a bit early - some still have blooms, but soon the cold season will be here.

Put on my gloves and reach inside a rose bush, taking each branch carefully in hand  (mindful of the thorns) and nipping each one. The roses are a beautiful and vibrant magenta, so unlike anything around them - everything else is background green and brown. If I trim them well, they will come back next year even more beautiful than before.

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Distracted by a bloom I reach in my hand to grab another stem - too hard and a thorn goes through the glove into my hand.

Pull back; the momentary shock of pain that makes you curse and furrow your brow. I blame the rose. I take off my glove and see just below the leather a trickle of blood going down my hand. The blood of good intention. I was only trying to help.

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But be as mad as I want, skin pricked for a moment, I'm cursing the thing I'm trying to help. And the rose retaught me the lesson of why it has thorns. The rose just wants to grow and protect itself.

And I learn this lesson again, as I stand here dumbly, with blood on my hand and a rose in a trash can.