THE SPEAK EASY

Web Address: http://www.scs.nevada.edu/~wrighta1

In the Flower Bed

Blue lilies in the flowerbed
can you all see the tears I've shed?
You seem to know that she is dead

Your melancholy shades of blue
are matching colors of my rue
but there is nothing I can do

And roses, all, that once were red
wilting here in the flower bed
Why could I not have gone instead?

Your gloomy scents which rise each dawn
bloom my memories as I yawn
reminding me that she is gone

Cruel was the thief that killed and fled,
left her cold in the flower bed,
a few months after we were wed

Crueler still is to be here
bereft of her who was so dear
without a reason that is clear

You flowers stood around her head
as she laid in the flower bed
still beautiful though she was dead

She was the one that gave you life
my lovely, gentle, caring wife
stabbed three times with a stolen knife

Never again will there be "we"
the thieving killer still is free
these truths do really torture me

I read the books that she once read
remember all that she once said
for hours I cry and hang my head

Dead petals falling as you sway
you flowers really seem to say
"All life and pain must pass someday

Be glad for all the things you've got
forget the things that you have not
unless you want your soul to rot."

This all is what the flowers said
with renewed hope I look ahead
more things to do before I'm dead

Her life will not have been in vain
so long as I must here remain
I'll make her goodness live again

And now the reason, once unclear,
of why I stay when she's not here
matters not for she is near.


Anthony Wright
March 26, 1998