Written in response to Sallie’s 155-word Valentine’s Day challenge on BTT….Hearts and flowers…
“Gather Ye Rosebuds”
Completed Feb,6 2005
by Shelba kits @ aol .com
Spoilers. Uhm … not really.
Category: Romance, Angst.
Archive: Yes.
Elements: Hearts and flowers.
Notes at the end.
“Gather Ye Rosebuds”
The roses at my bedside were delivered today. No name on the delivery slip, save mine. No way to know who brought them. No card reveals who sent them, but my heart knows.
My partner, my love, is gone, but I feel his love in every silken petal, the sting of his absence with the prick of each tiny thorn.
The perfumed beauty of the roses lulls me to sleep. In dreams I reach for him as I ache to do in the waking world. His lips are full and soft against my skin. Languid and silken, his tongue dances with mine. His body wraps around mine and I am cocooned in his warmth.
We are enveloped in our own reality: a universe where nothing can harm us; nothing can separate us. I long for a world where the dark holds no monsters; there are no children lost in starlight,
and we are together again.
Fin
Thanks to Sallie for the challenge and to Char for creating Believe the Truth. Thanks to Carol and Char for looking this over and to Robin for the title. It comes from the first line of the poem “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” by the 17th Century English poet Robert Herrick.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The entire poem is available at Bartleby . com.