A Poem a Day (28): She sits beside the rose

I've been watching Vikings, so that may have inspired this one! :)

Cheers & happy Sunday to ya!

She sits beside the rose

She sits beside the rose that grows

In the hereafter

A smell so sickly sweet

Red like blood, it mixes courage

In the thorns that cut so deep;

Rested in this decaying place

The burial of the aged,

Blessed in the past they roamed

Once beneath the bowing trees

Where birdsong once laughed,

Clear waters rippling by,

The thorn breaks the skin,

Ejects a drop of blood red here;

Awakening the morning

Darkness slinks and ebbs away,

Striking a path through the light

Where no one treads so still

So slight, she listens to the ages

As the rose petals sink to the ground

Drifting out upon the wind,

It speaks softly through the trees,

Rustling the leaves, twisting,

Like open hands they hover softly

Where she stands

Sightless and watching,

Hearing the wail of the often tide

Dancing in the shadows held aloft

The thorn rents the curtain in two,

So it falls

Slowly, like the dusting of a wave

Brilliant on the back of the butterfly;

It shimmers there

Soundless, crawling in between

The walls of time, so silencing;

It does not pretend to weep

As the petals descend into blood


Copyright Vickie Johnstone