Back in May I first came across these San Francisco street-flowers outside the inconspicuous community garden at Dearborn and Bird in the Mission. When I passed by earlier this week the roses looked even more neglected than before and even more appealing. A crop of white dahlias (below) had popped up nearby in the meantime, looking fresh as paint.
Somebody had left an intriguing selection of paperbacks face up in a neat row on the pavement, as if they could be guarded by the flowers.
Abandoned books seem to require speculation about who owned them in the past and what fate awaits them next. The care with which these had been laid out indicated clearly that the former owner was hoping they would find a good new home, but it was not easy for me to picture a happy fate for these fragile, battered artifacts of an earlier century.