The Blossoming of a Rose: The cruel Passage of Time

FADING ROSE, sung by Siera Keyt and written by Dodwell Keyt

The journey of a rose, from a delicate bud to a full, radiant bloom, is a symbol of life’s most exquisite moments. When the first hints of colour appear, a promise is made: a promise of beauty, grace, and vibrancy. The rose is a living masterpiece, one that unfolds its petals slowly, revealing layers of rich colour and texture that take our breath away. Yet, like all things touched by time, the beauty of the rose is fleeting.

As the days pass, the rose’s petals open wide, unveiling the intricate details of its form. Its fragrance fills the air, intoxicating and pure. The world pauses for a moment, enchanted by its brilliance. But, inevitably, as time continues its relentless march, the once vibrant petals begin to fade. The edges turn brown, the colours dull, and the petals fall one by one, until all that remains is the memory of the rose’s beauty. What was once a symbol of vitality and life becomes a shadow of its former self, leaving us with an ache for what has passed.

Why is time so cruel? Why does it have to take away what we hold dear, what we find beautiful? It seems almost unjust that something so pure and magnificent must inevitably fade. The rose’s fleeting beauty serves as a stark reminder of time’s unyielding nature. No matter how vibrant, no matter how strong, beauty cannot escape its grasp.

In this relentless passage of time, we are forced to confront our own mortality. The rose’s blooming and wilting reflects the cycles we, too, endure. Just as the flower must bloom, it must also fade. The vitality of youth, the brilliance of beauty, cannot last forever. It is the nature of all living things to eventually grow weary, to lose the spark that once made them shine. This process, though painful, is also what makes beauty so precious. If beauty lasted forever, would we appreciate it as we do now? Would we recognize the magic in a moment if that moment never passed?

Time, it seems, is not the enemy of beauty, but its necessary counterpart. It is time that allows beauty to have meaning. It is the fleeting nature of a rose’s life that makes its blossom so precious. If beauty were eternal, it might become mundane, no longer special. It is the transience of life—the delicate nature of its cycles—that creates the space for wonder and reverence. The rose may eventually die, but in its bloom, it has offered us something extraordinary, something that lingers in our hearts long after the last petal falls.

And what if we could hold back time? What if we could make beauty last forever? Perhaps we would find ourselves in a world where the magic of the rose’s bloom would no longer stir us in the same way. A rose that never fades would lose the poignancy of its fragility, its fleeting brilliance would become something we take for granted. Beauty, like time, must be allowed to evolve, to change, and to pass, for it is in this very process that it attains its true power.

Though we cannot stop time, we can savour its moments. The rose teaches us this lesson: to appreciate beauty in its prime, to marvel at the miracle of life and its inevitable fading. The bloom may not last forever, but its memory can live on in our hearts. As we look upon a fading rose, we remember that beauty is not defined by its longevity, but by the impact it makes in the time it is allowed to shine. And in that, time becomes not the destroyer of beauty, but its most perfect companion.