The Roses

'It's just a bad dream' she thinks
as the cold rain mists her hair.
'It will all be the same.
I'll see nothing's changed once I'm there.'

She opens the door with a deep breath;
finds the curtains are drawn,
but the vase sets alone on the table,
roses withered, the sweet smell is gone.

She holds back a tear for she wonders
could it possibly be different now?
She thinks of all that has happened,
praying hard that it could change somehow.

Years pass and she sadly grows older.
The prayers, and yet nightmares, remain.
She wishes that someone could help her
and the darkness to all fade away.

Her daughter one day calls upon her
whom she hadn't seen for so long.
She even believed she had lost her.
No letters; no ring from the phone.

They talk over coffee and tea.
For hours her sadness is lifted
learning her daughter had ventured;
now a beautiful woman, talented, and gifted.

Her daughter in time comes to stay.
Each day they talk more and more.
Each day she pulls back the curtain
so the sun may shine through on the door.

"Mom, I'll buy you fresh flowers in town,"
her daughter says as she picks up the vase,
but knows that she's said something wrong
by the tears on her mother's face.

All this time and she now understands
this is why she held on all these years.
As her daughter sets down the vase,
she says these last words through her tears.

"I think I have waited so long
just to tell you what I now can.
I love you so much, dear daughter,"
and then taking her by the hand,

"I've been waiting to tell you goodbye
so I can tell someone hello again.
For those are the roses he bought me
before the good Lord took him in."

-donna beckery
072701