One hundred and twenty four years ago there was a young colonel called William Owen who was commissioned in Zimbabwe. He lived there with his wife Anna and for two years they lived content in a peaceful cottage away from tribal hostilities. Each day William would quietly rise from his bed and pick a different wild flower from the bracken for his beloved Anna and leave it beside her as she slept for he believed his beautiful Princess should awake next to something of equal beauty every day of her life. One day they walked for hours through a jungle until the most beautiful sight bestowed them. Directly ahead of them was the highest waterfall shrouded in mist with a rainbow which shone upon his beloved. They walked to the apex of the waterfall and kissed against a rock which he later marked with their initials. William noticed close to the cliff edge that was a bed of blue roses which to his amazement were intact, even against the water clouds which lacerated all the other plants killing all in its path. William had never seen such a beautiful flower and wanted to take one to Catherine. However, the moment he gingerly touched the rose the petals fell and they died. He collected the blue petals and stem and took them to Anna and told her about how this flower withstood the mighty force of a waterfall but fell apart the moment he touched it. Anna told him to plant one against the rock where they kissed and once he had she insisted they leave for it was getting dark and they then left hand in hand and walked home. One morning late Midsummer he noticed Anna coughing in the light room crying as she wiped blood from her lips. William rushed over to her and she collapsed in his arms grasping the stem of a blue rose he had brought her so hard that the flower wept from her blood. Days and months passed by like sunset shadows and William noticed that as Anna slowly withered away so were the flowers outside. As he turned around he saw Anna wrapped in a paisley blanket and she said ‘My love it is time to say goodbye, take me to the fall where we fell last year’. William prepared the horse and held her in his arms as they cantered east from the bracken to the waterfall. Almost there he noticed a sea of blue roses rise above the pastures and he wept knowing as Anna was fading the roots of there love had spread across the forest directly to the grey rock they kissed against a year ago. As he laid Anna down against the rock she said to him ‘My love, the last time you kissed me here I never felt so alive and I shall feel alive again as you kiss me to sleep for the last time, kiss me William’, William choked back the tears and held her gently in his arms as his lips felt the firmness of her kiss before they loosened from the throes of death. He buried her amongst the blue roses as she wanted. He then walked to the cliff edge and noticed the roses still lay intact and had spread far and wide from east to west. The heavy mist of water from the waterfall bent all the other flowers and stripped them of their petals and they bowed to the blue roses The roses however stood majestic and proud and William looked on astounded feeling Anna as close to him in death as she was in life. He then touched one of the roses which slowly crumbled from his touch and he then realized that some things are so beautiful they are there only to be admired and not to be touched or belong to someone. Some things belong purely to God and lend there beauty to us for a short time that will remain in hearts forever. William named the roses after Anna, and to this day the Anna rose grows deep in the hills by Victoria falls and if you try and take one it will die in your hands. Three years later in the year of our Lord 1884 William was killed in action serving her royal majesty Queen Victoria. It is told that he was found over thirty miles from Victoria falls with five arrows in his back on a field of blue roses. When his fellow officers lifted him up to their amazement the roses he fell on were intact and embedded in both hands were two thorns piercing two petals and he was wrapped in vine of roses facing a rock smiling as the sun set to the east of the falls. Today lovers walk through this field of blue roses as the wind carries the breath of Anna who makes the roses bow to the feet of lovers who stop to kiss where people fall in love close to where her beloved fell.