- Those of her day
- saw her youthful beauty
- affirming her the fairest one of all.
- But looking through a cracked and foggy glass,
- She only saw a homely waif
- and shrunk away
- declaring herself unfit to be a bride.
-
- Like a tender bud
- fearing a season that never came,
- she stepped aside
- avoiding love’s intrusion.
- She became a shrinking violet,
- peering at life from darkened corners,
- afraid of what might be lurking just ahead.
-
- Thus with unopened petals,
- she grew drab and withered
- never knowing the heat of passion.
- Her peers moved on, buying season tickets
- on Life’s roller coaster ride
- while she found quiet repose
- among the growing things,
-
- With hoe in hand, she could be found
- communing with her flowers.
- We knew her thumb was green
- because seeds sprang forth beneath her feet
- in gay abandon expressing
- a flamboyance her quivering lips
- would never dare to utter.
-
- Her season passed, as seasons do,
- and she was planted
- in fertile ground among
- those of her kin, who'd gone before,
- but from her grave a seedling sprouted,
- and now in spring, a tulip tree
- assures the world, she walked in beauty
- and did not live in vain.
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