White Angels
How many roses since have come and gone?
he thought as he sat looking at her grave.
How many futures had been staked upon
those brilliant blooms to her he often gave?
What stiff buds like hands in prayer since drawn
in oils on canvas did she seem to crave?
“White angels,” she did sing the day they wed.
Again he placed them here now she was dead,
as he'd done each year upon her birthday.
The emerald garden and granite stones
still looked untouched. The olive trees now swayed
as ever had in June. As white as bones,
statues silent, but proud as gods portrayed,
were yet his marble friends and not undone
by tears. My Angel White was she when wed,
he mused again, his feelings still unsaid.
A thousand memories like ivy spill
over the wall behind his quiet chair.
Such fervent whispers in a windless chill
go through his head of sparse and silver hair.
So many letters from an inkless quill
he wrote alone as though they'd reach her there.
A thousand roses white as angels tread
upon his dreams, keep singing in his head.
But now the car was packed, the house was sold.
Their young sons all were grown and since moved out.
He blurted forth, “My darling, now I'm old.
The boys are grown and all are strong and stout;
I know that you'll be safe within their fold.
I must move, have a life that's now about
the years that I have left. I'll always hold
those times we had as precious as though gold.”
He stood and put the chair into the car.
He cried upon the freeway for some time,
the new life in the desert still afar
from coastal past and reminiscent clime.
A new home that he'd found could be on par
with what he'd now let go. Had come the time
when he must vanquish sacred angels white.
And thus he drove into the coming night.
8/20/17
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