The speaker looks back on a November walk through a rose garden and wishes they could rewind time to that moment. Back then, the roses seemed within reach, something they could have made their own if they had pushed away the "leaches," which the poem seems to use for people or influences that drained them. Now it feels too late. The speaker talks about carrying "weights" that won't go away and about still trying to chase happiness that stays just ahead.
The mood is wistful and a little bitter. November suggests the end of the season, when roses are usually gone, so the memory carries a sense of loss from the start. The last lines turn the image around: the roses the speaker once wanted are now "icy thorns," and those thorns are called a "prize." That could mean the speaker has accepted pain as the only thing their choices left them with, a hard lesson learned the costly way.