They grow from impenetrable granite,
rising in profusion with strength and vigor
where granite gives way to cracks and cleftsforcing down roots to soundless depths
within the earth to drink some potent fuel
that keeps these delicate shore roses
flickering like a thousands flamelets
in the windy salt-sea air.

Here the season is short.
To bloom is to survive another year
and a ruthless economy is at work
Irony and paradox and subterfuge – these, too,
are eager players in the desperate play for life.
Life and death feed off each other
like impassioned selfish lovers.

These granite stones are like cadavers
washed up long ago by a sea that had no use for them
whose last remaining blood, thinned out by sea-water,
sucked up by these pale pink short roses
as though they had drawn blood from stones.