Lovelier Paradise

The book before me lay meaningless. Numbers cropped up Forming in nervous rhythm geometric intricacies. Letters and words converged in tipsy web-like patterns. My heart I cupped in my hands and chasms of loneliness and aching wounds turned to tangible bands. My head I lifted for reasons anywhere. In the clouds? Perhaps, in the wind? With an almost infinite sweep, I dealt my heart the balm of resignation. “Tis the mystery of life. Your destiny you hold in the strife.” The breeze unbidden came in and out of my room. Could my loneliness thus depart? But the rose! The lone rose on my table scattered her yellow-white petals as the wind unmannered passed by. Beauty fading away! Falling! Vanishing! One by one I piled up these unfortunate vestiges of life to the semblance of the original. Would that I could keep in my hands beauty eternal. Nonsense! My hands had rendered the petals a mortal touch. They withered faster at the warmth of my clasp. I awoke as from a dream. I knew that as some petals vanished from sight another rose as lovely or lovelier somewhere bloomed. Again, in my hands I cupped my heart a gift from His heart. Condemned with Him my offering shall find a lovelier Paradise!