My love,

No longer adorned with gentle, green bells ringing in the arrival of brandy-cherry roses,  draped merrily in tiers of fern,                                                                                                          amidst vibrant orange lillies,                                                                                              trumpeting the soul’s rising.

The soft peace of fragrant white roses now masked by raked-over soil and muted grass,  too fast his beauty erased.

No color

Silence

Only the swirling breeze returns the memory of his touch to my tear-worn face.

Faint Spanish guitar dances beside me, as

I lay a small bouquet of daisies sent from a long-ago friend,

On the yellowed grass

While repeating words of love to him, as

The last lovely guitar chord is strummed,

Visions of floating waltzes drift off  in the distance.

Terry Grosvenor                                                                                                                                       May 2, 2017