One Spring Long Ago
Long ago, there came to the garden in which I’d been planted
a stranger who admired me in the spring of my life.
Tall was he; dark and gorgeous too.
He kept visiting my garden spot while singling me out
from the other lovely blossoms surrounding me
and who also called this large garden their home.
Sweet words he whispered through the garden fence.
His words became the susurration of the almost daily breezes
which he brought with him to caress my petaled face.
As he became less a stranger,
I longed more and more each day
to see him watching me outside the garden’s fence
which protected me from strangers,
or so I thought . . .
One day this handsome man flung open the gate to the garden.
Taking me by surprise, he strode right up to me
and stroked my blushing cheek.
Unaccustomed to unsolicited attention such as his,
I could do no more than stay posed there as always,
trembling all the way to the bottom of my stem.
Simply catching a glimpse of him
became all that I was living for that spring.
And although my soul was bursting with poetry,
I knew my role as a fenced-in rose.
Unable to voice my thoughts to him,
I could only bask in the warmth
of his amazing gaze, which eventually
I noticed being cast upon other flowers too.
Toward the end of that short spring season,
my spirit began to wilt, for I knew that this man
would be passing by no longer.
Here I stand as usual in my garden space,
for always I grow back, blooming again and again.
Many springs have come and gone
as well as some of my flower friends I used to know.
Others have withered away forever.
I too will wither away when only God can say,
and the handsome man my soul once yearned for
is but a melancholy memory of unrequited love,
which more importantly, I can look back on and realize
was not real love at all.
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