Their love never showed itself
in word or touch.
It simply travelled
through a colored atlas
of their own making.
Sunday rides in a battered Buick,
state highways traced in orange.
Twenty-fifth anniversary in Hawaii,
circled in pink
like their matching floral shirts.
Retired early, she insisted,
they sold all their worldly goods.
Left a three bedroom colonial
for a small motor home,
and rambled through forty states.
College towns starred in blue
for the young at heart.
Green highlights for favorite parks
and the Grand Canyon’s purple X,
the greatest site of all.
Now, in a pastel assisted living center
map of colors upon her wall,
she gazes out the window
at red and yellow tulips,
his ashes beneath their blooms.
With quaking hand
she touches coffee cup to pane,
then slowly to her lips.
This, their morning kiss, a ritual
now the road is still.
lillian the home poet 
Lillian -‘
What an exquisitely beautiful way to summarize a colorful and full life – though sometimes we don’t enter our golden years with all our colors intact.
Love this piece.
am:)
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So glad you like it. Sipping my evening wine, listening to the wind chimes on our 7th floor deck….not quite the ocean sounds, but I’ll take it.
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Really lovely, Lillian.
lol I just took my front deck chimes down – they are colossal things – almost like organ pipes. I thought I’d give the neighbors a break;)
am:)
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Love droplets through your words. Love it.
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Many thanks! Love your wording here :). Happy I am with my coffee and your like!
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