Shouldn't…but Do

There is only one.  A solitary, fragrant white flower amid emptying seed cases and fading leaves.

It is a Mock Orange.  In spring, its branches sway heavily, laden with confections of golf-ball size blossoms.  Situated near the house, its fragrance wafts long  through window and memory, as the best spring flowers do.

But it is not spring, it is autumn.  In between, the shrub learned and lived, and now  sheds its fruits and settles before a cooling wind.

Except for the one flower.  At the end of a branch held high in the air, free of twigs and clustered leaves, it holds forth in the sun by day. Moonlight finds it bobbing up and down on the breeze, delighted.  I know because I have seen it myself.

It is not easy to hold out so long, to bloom after all others, in inclement weather  that can spell rapid demise.  Alone, but brilliant, no missing it.  Unable to flower under the usual conditions, it held out for something different.  A character, we might say.

I am grateful for the hold-out.  Brave or foolish, aberrant or one-off, there is none so lovely in the blue, blue sky.