Return of Rose
In my desiccated wasteland,
soil, dry and brittle, turned to dust,
swirled on the wings of the summer wind.
ruffling my rose sapling, I reared with care.
The reticulate veins of the curling leaves,
changed into winding lanes of fading memory.
The desert storm slashing the edge of listless life,
swept the falling leaves away.
Through the dust screen spinning to nowhere,
the residual rays of the setting sun filtered,
the spectrum soaked the shards of shattered dreams,
I tried to preserve in the niche of essence.
I chased the shifting mirage,
that morphed into the fallen leaves,
drifting away from my defoliated sapling of rose,
the branches bare in desolation.
Across the melting shadows of satin clouds adrift,
through the golden beams from the dusk horizon,
I ran on the trail of the fallen leaves floating away,
caught them at the end of the garden path.
I held them close to my heart,
until they turned into seeds of hope,
slipping through my weathered fingers,
they fell where the sapling of rose was once.
In spring they returned rising from dust,
and flowered again as the rose of longing.
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November 25, 2022
For A Brian Strand Premiere Choice Contest
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