She Sleeps In Lavender

She Sleeps in Lavender
by D.C. O’Rourke

She sleeps in lavender and lace,
Beneath a hill of willow grace.
No marble marks the borrowed ground,
Just wind that weeps without a sound.

The earth, still soft from recent tears,
Has not yet learned the weight of years.
And so I come, with hands ungloved,
To press the soil she once had loved.

The violet grows where breath once fell,
Where lips would part, where laughter dwelled.
Now scent alone is what remains—
A ghost in bloom, perfumed with pain.

I dare not speak, for fear she hears,
And rises up through root and years.
I dare not cry—my tears might soak
The dress in which she never woke.

I left her there with braided hair,
And pinned within, a prayer, a care.
A single strand fell loose, unkempt—
A ribboned sin I still have kept.

O lavender, thy bloom deceives—
So lovely draped on autumn leaves.
Yet thou dost keep what once was fair,
A bloom entombed with raven hair.

So still she sleeps, through frost and thaw—
My soul the mourner, bound by law.
No vow I break, no ring I rend—
But every flower marks the end.