Lady Stetson Rides No More

Her dried-up withering petals once shone lovely in the golden sun growing older now in the mirror’s unforgiving reflection. She’s lingering among the living, as if her life had just begun though her heart has lost its resting place protection. Gone as an expired breath in the silhouette of the blissfully dead. Too proud to die by our side, she got the last laugh that day. She changed her address to Heaven and abruptly fled. Existing now in my past, no longer a reason to stay. I try to visit her memory often, but it rains there all year round. I send my love on deathless wings beyond billowy clouds amending. Seized by sorrow as a bitter tear falls into my glass, soon to drown The hurt merely turns to memories; some good, some bad, some never-ending. The woman that I’ve become, she wouldn’t even know, temporarily lost amid the colorless roses where she once stood. I can still hear her infectious cackling, like a broken song that now fills Heaven’s perpetual fais do-do. She walks in sepia-toned earthly shadows on the unpaved road of her southern childhood. ~Dedicated to my beautiful Cajun mom, Jennifer Ann Oliver Hubbert. Jawa Turken! Contest: Open Poetry 4 Poetry Contest Sponsored by: Charlotte Puddifoot Date: May 3, 2021