rose

A Death

‘Come lie with me,’ she croaked, 

And her cough wracked her 

Skin and bones 

As a crow shakes the 

Flesh from a roadkill. 

Bolstered up on her pillows

Her face cracked into an

Almost smile and I

Reached my hand to hers

And lay me down beside

In anticipation of

Her last breath. 

I held a handkerchief 

To her mouth 

To catch the sputum,

Muttering platitudes

That we both knew were 

Untrue. 

And as her once shining eyes 

Grew dull and her breath 

Stuttered and crackled

So my tears began to rise

Warm, salt springs

Welling up from

A deep underground cavern. 

We lay for an hour 

Her hand in mine 

Until coughing 

Became wheezing

As breath was no more. 

And as her spasms weakened 

So mine increased; in

Overwhelming sorrow at a loss

No one can measure. 

Her Sweetness; my love

Obliterated 

For ever. 

Poem and image copyright Englepip ©

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A rose by any other name

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They call you dog rose,
But could anything
Be more sublime
Than your five pink petals
And your  yellow filaments fine?

Derogatory term for beauty
Here hiding shyly
In the shade of early June.
Dappled light of early summer
But hedges soon to festoon.

They say you will cure
A mad dog’s bite
Your juices potent in the fight
But for me your beauty
Is the simple remedy
That helps heal a heart
Pierced by inconstant love’s dart.

Poem and photo copyright Englepip©

Daily Prompt: White Rose

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A winter’s day

And already the sun is low on the horizon

A chill creeps through the air

As the light sinks.

The graveyard settles into shadow

And night.

At my feet lie the dead.

Buried beneath the cold clods

Stones at their heads that read

Of poetic loss and grief at their passing.

“Beloved son”, “Loving mother,”

“Sacred to the memory.”

The once living

Now lie inanimate,

Six feet under.

Waiting: for what?

For eternity, for heaven or for hell?

Certainly, their release from this life passed,

Is there death, new life, resurrection?

For this is a Christian place.

As I turn to go,

I retrieve a discarded rose,

White and innocent in the dewy grass

And I place it on the moss-covered  wall

Between the sacred land and the unconsecrated.

Is it for me to sympathise in death or

To celebrate of the life to come?

 

We shall all find out in time.

 

Words and photo copyright to Englepip©

via Daily Prompt: Sympathize