She spoke first of roses—
not one, not twelve,
but fifty,
as though a number could shine.

She planted them in words,
prepared them in hope,
with a joy too large to question.
“Why so many?” I asked.

“Because,” she said,
“this is gold.”

From a cedar chest of years
she lifted her wedding dress,
stitched by her own hands
when time was young.

She called our son,
keeper of light and lens,
and stood before the house,
the backyard,
the open eye of day.

Then to the city park we went—
to the pavilion,
where a church stood quietly behind us
as witness.

The groom wore a seventy-seven-year-old suit,
and the photographer said,
“Try to kiss.”

Above us,
clouds drifted in a blue so high
it felt remembered.

The bride forgot her years.
She stepped onto green grass
and began to turn—
a living wheel of joy,
a merry-go-round with no music
but breath.

She was sixteen again.

She ran toward the open field,
toward a single magnificent tree,
blue mountains resting far behind,
and asked the groom for his back,
as though time itself could carry her.

Then she said,
“It is enough.
Fifty roses.”

She never ran to be seen.

Fifty years ago
snow fell hard in Seoul,
the wind cut sharp as truth.

Now, across the Pacific,
over the Shenandoah,
through Appalachian folds of earth,
she ran freely
in her wedding gown—

arms lifted,
face turned to the sky,
circling beneath feathered clouds
floating like petals
on a blue ocean of air.

One by one,
the roses were counted by scent,
not sight.

She turned blessing into motion,
gratitude into light,
grace into a circle
without end.

At evening,
she gathered her two small Yorkies
into her arms at home,
as though holding
the last petals of the day.

Thus it happened—
Gift from above with fifty roses.

– TaeHun Yoon