Rose of Rhapsody

As I traversed the wasteland, my footsteps crushed the desiccated ground, dry and brittle soil turned to dust, swirled on the wings of the autumn wind. Some blew away from me, in my weathered urn, some I collected, and spread on the skeletal roots of the rose sapling, I reared with care. The contours of the curling leaves, tracing the trying tracks of time, turned to tortuous lane of fading memory. The dust storm slashing the listless life, rushed from the twilight horizon. The surge swept the falling leaves away, and as they rustled I heard them sigh… ‘hold us before we disappear’. Through the last dust drifting nowhere, the residual rays of the setting sun filtered, soaked the shards of shattered dreams, morphed into dislodged leaves, flying away from the sapling of rose. They left the buds bare in defoliated frame, I tried to keep as long as I could in the niche of my yearning. Through the golden beams of the setting sun, I ran on the trail of the floating leaves, caught them and held them close to my heart, until they turned into seeds of hope, slipped through my fatigued fingers, fell on the soil where the sapling of rose stood. In spring the leaves returned to the buds, that blossomed for me as the rose of rhapsody. ________________ February 12, 2023 For A Brian Strand Choice No. 1185 Contest