When Love Dies, The Flowers Fade

[Lorenzo]

by: Neil Harding McAlister


Our passion once lit up the nights
As brilliant as the Northern Lights;
But just as evanescent, it would seem.
Cold reason told us, run in fear;
But love’s strange brightness drew us near,
Like moths into its hypnotizing beam.
Now cheerless luminescence creeps;
The light is there without the heat;
And what remains is just a frigid gleam.
Do you know where the feeling goes
As over us life’s seasons flow?
The love we shared and used to know
Has vanished like the melting snow --
A winter’s dream.                                                                    

A sweet and fragile fantasy,
A sand castle beside the sea,  
How can love stand against a rising tide?  
The lover who was part of you,
Who bared his bleeding heart to you,  
Is by the rushing waters washed aside.
The flood has doused affection’s fires,
Extinguishing our hearts’ desires,
And snuffing out our hopes and dreams besides.
With changing fortune’s ebb and flow
We watch love’s seasons come and go;
Bright promises we treasured so
Drowned in emotion’s undertow;
Our vows belied.

I know that when the passion dies
A mouthful of well-meaning lies
Is kinder, when the truth gets in the way.
A mournful chorus gathers ‘round
To serenade us with the sound
Of silence, when there’s nothing left to say.
You kill me with an empty kiss
To tell me I’ll get over this
And learn to love again another day.
But hearts are not like weathervanes
That veer with changing joy and pain.

[cujo]

Everything passes;everything wears out;everything breaks.{tout passe,tout lasse,tout casse.}

                                                  French proverb

P.S.
Beautiful poem.

[Lorenzo]

Indeed it is.


My xgf sent me this poem many, many years ago.


It is the only letter of hers that I did not include in the pyre. It is so eerily cold, so soul penetrating, so deep in its message that I could not burn it as I did with her other letters. I read it from time to time, to remember the deepness of her Love for me, and of my past failings.

That I let such a flower slip by my fingers. It encourages me, motivates me to be a better person, and to never hurt another woman as I did her...

It was my pride, my stupid pride, that made me walk away from her, while she was crying tears of flood. I could have embraced her one more time, I could have ushered words to comfort her, but I did not. My pride in needing to show her that I was 'final' prevented my giving of compassion. The memory of her face, her voice calling out to me, and her hand outstretched to me still haunts me from time to time.

I do not want to repeat such an event, ever again. It was my past failure. And I hope she has forgiven me.

[Lorenzo]

[cujo]

Lovely girl...

[Lorenzo]

That is the beauty of a Chinese Woman.

She is Chinese-American. An intelligent one at that. She is a Ph.D doctoral student in Immunology/Micropathology.

A deadly-beautiful combination of beauty and brains.

[Lorenzo]

My reply:

(a poem that I never had the strength to send, but kept in my journals)


If I’d Never Met You
If I’d never met you,
I wouldn’t feel the pain
Of losing your sweet love;
I wouldn’t feel insane.
But if I’d never met you,
I wouldn’t know the pleasure
Of ecstasy’s warm gifts
And memories to treasure.
Now moving on with life,
I force a wistful grin,
Questioning what went wrong
And wondering what might have been.