Evanescent Splendour

Circumscribed as her life was By the inescapable miasma of stifling destitution, Lovely but not luscious, She delighted in wading through A valley strewn with thorns But hers was never a stroll through a grove of roses Her petals laden with perfume As the proverbial fair flower of the same name. All arms and legs, a bundle of bones Her frail, lissome frame merrily bore All travails of her short, terrestrial sojourn. Unlike her double in nature, She had no thorns; Rose is deemed the queen of flowers, But she carried a thorny crown. Hers was no misnomer as she excelled The life of her namesake to the core. Slim as her stem was, the agonies of her bosom knew no bounds. A taper, she burned bright to dispel the pall of gloom That bound her withered plain Even as the vicissitudes of life consumed her. Tender-aged as she was, she mothered many a sibling. Self-oblivious and alien to all earthly comforts, Her resolve never skin-deep, her renunciation no ornament, She was condemned to be a host, a victim of parasitoidism