Outside the window that is next to my computer desk is a large shrub of Fantin-Latour. This year it has come into its own. It has filled in and spread into a bush that is about 5 1/2 feet high and 6-7 feet wide, its long arching canes beginning to bend over with the weight of buds and opening flowers. The central bloom in each cluster is now open and after a flurry of deadheading, in a few days there'll be another, heavier flush. I think that I wouldn't be so appreciative of this fantastic rose if it bloomed all the time -- this way I find myself getting excited as the buds swell and the first flowers always make me gasp with wonder. What a treat to anticipate each spring! The blossoms are perfect and epitomize the essence of rose. The fat, deep pink buds break open into such large blooms that I wonder how they were ever furled into those buds. As they unfold they swirl into a classic, quartered pattern finally expanding into a rounded flower with a flat base that, if it were placed on a saucer would resemble a scoop of strawberry ice cream. Last night I sat outside in the moonlight, reveling in the unusually warm air laden with the scents of roses and irises. The pale flowers of Fantin-Latour gleamed in the pale light and I picked a fully- opened blossom to hold in my hand, against my nose. I sniffed and worried at it until it finally shattered, filling my hand with concave, pale petals, each of them redolent with the elusive aroma. Every petal was perfect in itself, satiny and sweet -- I drifted heavenward in the arms of spring.