Flowers

It was a sunny day, but her vapours still veiled me. Her morning mist, hovering above the still Earth in earliest dawn, still consumed me. She lay before me, peaceful and still as always, her eyes gently closed to the stars, awaiting the communion of a kiss, not ponderous - never one to flutter.

            The birds chirruped, their calls and song carried easily in the stillness. The soft spongy earth gave wing to the spring flowers, that smell of April – soft, airy. Like hands cupped to pool rain water, transforming it into honeysuckle, into bee nectar. The earth is like her: it transfigures. If only my memory could do the same.

            Her gravestone is still as clear as ever, etched whitely like an invisible message written into chalk cliff-face. Two years gone, her body rests beneath the earth in a shroud. I place the irises atop the faux emerald stones, the violet and purple flowers perfectly coupling the deep green.

            A noise carried on the wind makes me stir. I turn, curious and stunned. But it is not her voice that I hear; just the distant mutterings of an old lady, mourning somewhere amongst the endless rows of graves.