In the land of the practical
There lived an ornamental
A desert rose.
A farmers wife
Planted her
To break up
The graveled nap
Of gray caliche
And from the time
She pushed her first shoot up
She knew she
Didn’t look like
The other plants.

The land could not
Be farmed
There was no oil
So the farmer and his wife
Moved On
Leaving the rose alone
Amongst the desert cabbage
And the other wild succulents.

At first she tried
To blend
Curl her velvety leaves
Into a cabbage
Fodder
For the desert fauna
But the animals avoided her
Because she looked odd.
They worried that she was poisonous
So she crawled back
Underground.

But still she longed
For light on her face
So she stuck another shoot up
Conserving all her energy
For her stems
She didn't want to frighten anyone
But her stems grew thick and woodsy
Like a thorny fig vine
And after a hiker
Cut his leg
She curled up
And crawled underground.

Years passed
Until she was as frozen
As the ground
Then one day
She sensed movement
Above her.
She pushed a shoot up
And standing above her
Smiling
Was a young woman
- There you are
The woman cried
- Why are you hiding away
My grandmother told me
All About you.
You were the one bright spot
Of color in her garden
She could smell your perfume
From her window
And it reminded her that
Beauty could survive
Even in such
A drab place.

And the rose blossomed.