The climbing roses have thrived this year, and the topmost ones are flowering again. I just snapped this shot today, attempting to capture the creamy springlike hue of the rose along with the first gold tinge of the witch hazel. 

Not for nothing are these called climbing roses. I leaned out a second-floor window to take this photograph. While I enjoy the view from on high, I miss the full effect when I’m more earth-bound. 

Every year at blooming time — the main flowering season in late May and the lesser one in September — I ponder the lesson in this. A reminder to train my eyes upward? To have perspective?

Second bloom means second chances, a bonus, what ought not to arrive but somehow, miraculously, does. In a time of year more associated with fading and dying, these flowers are just coming to life. Maybe that’s why there are second blooms — for the romantics among us who like to pretend there are messages in nature.