Thirty-by-Three

Mother had created a rose garden

that ran thirty by three.

She was proud,

as proud as any fanned peacock

of her new petal plot.

The roses were colorful,

fragrant, and beautiful,

the envy of the neighborhood.

A strand of coral rock

ran along the driveway

to discourage any wheels

from damaging the flowers.

And Dad had designed and

installed a fence as

a backdrop for the garden.

Mother did not take into account

the blood, sweat, and tears

taking a toll on her son in order

to care for her prickly, prized garden.

She had it in her mind

that she wanted a rose garden;

and a rose garden she got!

She would often pluck and prune

and dress her thorny pets.

I, on the other hand,

was relegated to keeping out

the annoying weeds

that bred like rabbits,

and claimed Squatter's rights.

These stubborn weeds

loved crowding into the thirty-by-three space.

It was in their nature,

a sort of manifest "pestiny."

Those wily weeds had a penchant

for getting entangled

in the spiky rose stems,

between the coral rocks,

and through the woven boards

of the fence.

And if that wasn't bad enough,

the weeds had a way of camouflaging

the sand spurs, or

the fire ants, or

missing prickly rose snippets.

Most of the time

when I reached down to pull weeds,

there was usually

a surprise waiting for me.

I developed a passionate hatred for those

weeds, sand spurs, snippets, and ants

in the thirty-by-three rose garden!

Whenever I was reminded

to weed the rose garden,

I would wear only

blue jean cutoffs and sandals 

to keep cool.

With more skin left bare, however,

this gave the mosquitoes a greater target

once the repellent had worn off.

They were the thorns of the air,

diving upon my flesh

in crazed kamikaze-like fashion.

Between the pointed things on the ground,

and the proboscises circling in the air,

it was akin to experiencing a ground-air assault.

It seemed as if every pointed thing

in nature converged

within the thirty-by-three.

Looking back over all the chores

my parents bequeathed to me as a son,

pulling weeds out of the rose garden

was my all-time least favorite task.

Back then,

I could not appreciate

the aesthetic qualities of a rose

because of that oppressive,

high maintenance plot of land

under the Florida sun.

Though I love

the look and

the smell of roses,

to this day,

I have never

planted a rose bush

in any of the yards

that I have owned.

Whenever I see a rose,

whether in a vase or planted in the ground, 

I can't help but think 

of the distasteful time spent 

in the thirty-by-three.

In spite of the magnificent beauty of a rose,

I would have to confess 

that a rose by any other name

would still be a pain in the rear.