The Evening Flower

 

I came to your silent garden gate,

With an evening flower in hand—

Soft petals trembling in twilight’s breath,

A gift you’d never planned.

My hope, like a moth to a distant flame,

Beat softly on the air,

As whispers die in an empty hall,

I stood and waited there.

No one opened. No voice replied.

I stood where strangers wait.

The sun dissolved in your sea of tears,

And I stepped through sorrow’s gate.

Your grief, a river wide and deep,

Flowed silent to the sea,

And drew my heart, like a sinking stone,

To drown itself in thee.

In the hush of your unspoken pain,

My dreams were gently drowned.

Your thoughts, like embers from a storm,

Fell in my eyes—profound.

They pierced my soul like ancient stars

That through the darkness gleam,

And held me fast, like a drifting ship

Caught in a waking dream.

My desires curled like burning leaves,

My offering turned to flame.

The bloom I bore, now ash and smoke,

Still whispered out your name.

Yet passion, like the phoenix, rose

From ruin—pure and bright,

To shimmer in the vacant air,

A ghost of tender light.

My yearning, like a pilgrim’s quest,

Would follow where you trod,

And cling to shadows, like the moss

Upon a sacred sod.

Like night and day, I begged to ride—

A journey not yet made,

To trace your steps through memory’s street,

Where even ghosts have stayed.

And when your heart walks back that road

One dusk, or distant dawn,

You’ll find the faint print of my soul

Long after I am gone.

That day, the wind will hum my truth—

So tender, so undone:

“I loved you more than words could bear.

I loved you as the sun.”