Wild Roses on the Beach

Summer is most of a month away but the wild roses on the beach are in fresh, full flower, red, pink and white. A few years ago I wrote this prose=y sort of poem about them.

Well able the wave-washed ribbon of sand, among
the tough dune grasses but before the hearty
shoreline trees, thorny wild roses spread low.
Their meager diet comes from what soil lines within
and beneath the drifting dune. The salty sea winds
have forced the roses to flatten their tangles
like a scouring pad, impenetrable except
to small flying or crawling creatures.
In August their fat, red hips are storage vats
for vitamin C for the few who use them for tea.
Amid the dangerous bramble the plenteous hips
glow like glass balls hung on Christmas trees,
festive and not so fragile, the shell-hard skin
is polished by the wind blown sand
to a gilded crimson -- choruses of hallelujahs.