As The Last Petal Falls
As I traverse the bleakness of the wasteland,
my footsteps crush the cinnamon ground.
Dry and brittle soil turns to desolate dust,
swirls on the wings of the autumn wind.
Some blows away from me despondent,
some I collect in my weathered urn,
and spread on the secluded skeletal roots
of a blooming rose sapling, I rear with care.
The contours of its curling petals unfurling,
trace the trying tracks of the transient time,
turn to tortuous lane of the fading memory.
The dust storm slashing the listless life,
rushes from the edge of the twilight zone.
The surge sweeps away the falling petals,
and as they rustle, I hear them sigh…
‘hold us before we disappear’.
The last dust of longing drifts nowhere,
through the residual rays of the setting sun,
soaking the shards of the shattered dreams,
morphs into dislodged petals of pain,
flying away from the sapling of the rose,
leaving the plant bare in the de-floral frame,
I try to keep displayed as long as I can
in the nostalgic niche of my yearning.
Through the golden sunset beams,
I see the last petal of rose fall sequined,
catch it before it flies away, hold it close to heart,
until it turns into a seed of sanguinity,
slipping through my fatigued fingers,
fall on the soil where the sapling of rose stands.
In spring the petal returns to the beguiled bud,
blossoming for me as the rose of rhapsody.
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