A quiet soft night,
with feathery snowflakes in flight.
A young woman in the open,
heart full of fright.
Hair wild in tendrils of the softest brown.
Snowflakes melt at the burning touch of her crown.
Tears stream down her face,
seeping into her dress of lace,
Silently without a cry or sound.
Around her, towering trees,
creaking from the slightest breeze.
A symphony of sorrow all around.
Her heart is so alone,
she's freezing to the bone!
But all she thinks of is his frown.
She collapses to her knees,
wraps her arms around her to ease,
the pain seeping through her and pulling her down.
Under icy water her heart drowns.
Her head just pounds and pounds.
She clutches it and to dear sanity she holds.
She grabs at her locket
and reaches into her pocket,
for a letter she carefully unfolds.
She remembers her lover,
a hero like no other,
with eyes like burning rings of gold.
What she would do,
just for a second or two!
Before his strong, warm body went limp and cold.
In the letter he wrote,
before they sent back his bloody cap and coat,
from a place where no man can hide,
from death's greedy claws
and it's dirty blood-covered jaws.
In his letter he dreams,
of them building a cottage near a bubbling stream,
happy, with small children frolicking.
They're wet, their clothes are soaking.
So she scolds them and sends,
each of them off to bed,
Failing at keeping her smile from creeping.
But that painting is no more,
now that the story's core,
is gone leaving hearts breaking.
She folds his precious letter once more,
minding each crease and where it had once slightly tore,
trying to stop her numb fingers from shaking.
How shall she go one?!
Now that dear John has gone,
and has been ripped from her every second of waking.
What shall she do,
with all the time she used
to spend hoping, planning and waiting?!
They were never to be married, his children never to be carried,
for dear John was to be buried.
They would never share a life.
That hit her worse than a stabbing knife!
His promises he was breaking.
He was never coming back.
His jokes he would no longer crack.
These thoughts on her mind were grating.
He would no longer enter the room,
with a bouquet of white roses in full bloom,
saying with a shy smile that he has come courting.
At that she can no longer take it.
How did he not make it?!
As the sky was hit by a bolt of lightning.
She no longer found the dark frightening.
She walked to the edge of the frozen lake.
Her hands had no need to shake.
So with the toe of her boot, the water she tested.
Her decision in her mind had nested.
She was going to wait for dear John,
at the place they had once rowed upon.
But before she could blink,
her dress was drenched and she began to sink.
Now she could see dear John at the brink.
Of that she could only think.
She embraced death with invitingly open arms!
