Wrinkled roses

There was a line in the Tale of Genji somewhere about a particular flower in someone's fall or summer garden. The flowers, they thought, were nice, but those members of the medieval Japanese court really looked forward to the faded blooms and their particular shade of yellow, the way they hung just so on the stems crisp and delicate. I am thinking of that this morning with the odd-dozen wrinking pink roses hovering just above my computer screen faded in spots and seemingly a darker, more intense magenta in others, aging gracefully, perhaps more beautiful now, long after someone else might have tossed them away.