JOURNEY

A bright Spring moon silvers
the roof and the budding
pink cassias. Great sheets of
argent light deck the lawns.

Still, the house lies in shadow,
not a home, rather a hollow
draped in darkness, outlined in
spectral remnants of the 
brightness it cruelly disowned.

Sleep eludes me, dearest sister.
I stray into your rosarium; 
here, silver beams throw bushes
denuded of blooms into vivid
relief against the white walls.

Starkly silhouetted severed
stems summon my
tears; they speak a truth I do
not wish to know.

No power could restore you to
me, no entreaties to Him 
imbued with the collective 
fervour of every prayer uttered
through the ages. 

My grief's sole companion bids
me farewell. Did she minister
to you, sister, through the dark
night of your soul? 

The first shafts of deep coral
shed their faint radiance
above the slumbering gardens.
Lovingly they swaddle each
leaf and thorn in misty pink-gold,
in your beloved hues.
In this light, you live, in its
soft, warm glow.

A whirlwind of whispers breaks
in upon the silent verdure, 
as doves and thrushes rise into
the dawn with one accord.

Do you ascend with them, sister,
you, who now stand upon
the ætheric threshold of a joyous
new adventure?

Yes, you have merged with gentle
Eos, blithe spirit!
We shall greet each other as
always at daybreak.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: CORDELIA
Source: www.liveinternet.ru
Artist: Élisabeth Sonrel

1. 
   

WAKE

Spring weeps this day for you

who came to Earth

with rainbows in her eyes and

a heart full of song.

Her sobs echo in your rosarium,

slipping into spaces

where carmine blooms nodded

in the morning breeze.

A single coral rose graces your

eternal rest. Her sisters

seek to lend our now bereft abode

 your warmth and soul.

I stagger back into a vapid world

destitute of heart and

vision, wending my way through

a miasma of pretense.

Cold silences of bygone decades

ooze through cracks in

masks of studied sorrow. Dark's

minions have triumphed.

Wandering the house, I seek further

traces of you. Endless

bushels of living flames could not

illumine this darkness.

Your lilac apron lies in a crumpled

heap on the kitchen

table by your phone, your smiling

incarnation its wallpaper.

I shall not weep this day, dearest

sister. My tears shall 

fall when the last of your beloved

roses begins to fade.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: YOUNG WOMAN READING
Source: pinterest.com
Artist: Samuel Melton Fisher

ABSENCE

All morning, I endeavoured

to fill your absence

with coral roses, remnants

of your earthly life

that laugh louder than you

ever ventured to.

I plundered every last bloom

from your beloved

bushes, sister. Your radiance

shall not go unseen

this day, nor your restoring

fragrance unmarked. 

Butterflies and bees enact a

varicoloured musical

sketch in the garden, buzzing

and flitting to the

lingering rhythms of airs you

sang to them alone. 

Henceforth, I shall tend these

shrubs with my wonted

discipline, a poor substitute

for your gentle devotion.

Perhaps Heaven's warriors,

weary from battling evil,

have greater need of you

than mere mortals,

of your hands and eyes that

spoke the language

of Eternal Light.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image Source: www.liveinternet.ru
Artist: Constance Phillott

EULOGIUM

Strange, how self-preservation

inspires such ornate speech,

such poignant expression...

Furtive, conspiratorial whispers

yield to moving eloquence

about your beauty,

about your numerous virtues.

Dust laden, mildewed verbiage,

platitudes stowed away

in those sunless cellars they

call minds, these are

this world's parting gifts to you.

Through a veil of numbness, I

watch them as they spout

grandiloquent verbs and phrases 

culled from a thesaurus

yellowed with age, punctuating

dissemblance with impassioned

sobbing, as if to drown out

echoes of their own cruel design.

Yes, your silence fell too long on

deaf ears. They shall now 

outdo themselves and each other

in their eagerness to reference

you in the past tense.

I shall favour brevity
just this once, my dear sister:

"Words could not fill the spaces

into which you breathed life.

No, these are merely unwitting

vehicles of your trespassers' guilt.

You shall be avenged."

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE YOUNG MARTYR

Source: www.wanderlustlust.com

Artist: Paul Delaroche

ACHROMATIC

In death, you spoke your loudest ever,
mother, in crystal clear tones
devoid of your timeless, threadbare
timorousness.

Thenceforth, I live a waking dream in
black and white, every colour in
me petrified into a vast frozen ocean. 

Not all silence is golden; yours cast
an ineffaceable leaden
shroud on my soul, its every particle 
bears the weight of the
Universe.

Light and breath turn away in sorrow
from its ashen presence,
this spectre in a now wonted state of
flux, moulding itself to
your distant whispers. Yes, you make
yourself heard.

I now stand at the edge of everything
I do, of all I have ever done,
as a storm in slow motion engulfs me,
its grand greyness enmeshed
with my soulscape.

The mysteries of pain occupy all that
remains of me, its elastic
expanses and yielding shores.
This is my sole earthly mission; I seek
to fathom the only gift you
didn't begrudge me.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: www.johnwilliamwaterhouse.com
Artist: John William Waterhouse

AWAKENING

Faerie blooms, Candlemas bells,

daughters of the returning

Sun's first rays, early Spring's 

nascent glow you hold,

the first whispers of Her longing.

Soft as a babe's breath you emerge

from the frosty Great Below,

clothed in Winter's pure white gold,

crowned with hope's verduous

jewels, heads bowed in reverence to

this sacred Awakening.

With Her niveous tints painted, o'er

her luminous canvas a misty

veil you cast, that she may, now

vanquished, retreat unperceived 

into Time's ancient womb.

Angels' tapers, shower your gentlest

beams 'pon fair Persephone's

path, in tenderest hues clad 

her advent hail, ere Springtide's glory

sets Nature ablaze, ere her

vibrant, perfumed vesture blinds and

befuddles all Creation.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: FAIR MAIDS OF FEBRUARY
Source: www.pinterest.com
Artist: John Atkinson Grimshaw

CROCUS

Thou winsome youth, ill-fated mortal,
beloved of Smilax,
dearest companion of the gods'
winged Messenger,
didst thou yearn to soar
thro' Elysian fields as he?

Did thy blighted spirit glide 'pon great
Hermes' discus,
ere it struck thy brow,
spilled thy life blood,
robbed thee of breath, of life's bloom?

By grief undone, he, divine bearer of
the herald's staff,
ordained thee the harbinger of rebirth,
of hope renewed,
that thou wouldst foretoken
Persephone's advent.

In eternal life art thou earthbound still.
Yet, thou wearest Elysium's
dearest hues, for thy chalice Maia's
child laved in celestial oceans.
Thy earthly essence, vermilion of his
deep dolour, dwelleth in thy heart.

Thou first note of Spring's sparkling
verset deep in Earth's womb,
surge thro' Winter's waning cadences, 
thro' her argent spread,
for to drink deep of crystal skies!

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: www.charlotteangles.com