Flowers
By gingermark
- 593 reads
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know'
John Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn), May 1819.
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I'd never really got the flower thing
until that day in mid-July
when you, eyes closed and resting, peaceful
opened mine to another sight.
I'll never know what kind they were
I can't even remember the colour,
but the smell will stay with me forever,
a sickly sweet to tasting point.
I remember stepping forward to carry the corner,
to take the full force of that scent on my shoulder,
your lightweight frame swamped in flowers,
the perfume buzzing around my head.
I thought of the times with the daffodils,
flowers of spring and hope,
the sly bunch every day from college
kept our happy house bright for weeks.
But yesterday will never be tomorrow
no matter how hard we try.
The pictures, framed, stand smiling back
to days we thought we'd see again.
You garage of all places still sticks in my mind
as we sat there chain smoking for hours,
smiling through grief, insane chatter
small relief in insane times.
I knew you weren't going to move
and I knew I had to see you;
the long trudge up the lined staircase
took me to your cold small room.
Of course I'd been warned beforehand
that you didn't look like you,
but you always just were you
and that's who I saw that day.
So peaceful, so beautiful,
still smiling, always you.
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