Original watercolor by Wayne David Hand

Late June
and the magnolia which blossomed
with such passion in March
has gone the way of most
things subjected to the lucid heat
of a Louisiana summer,
yet like a desperate lover who
holds tight to threads of emotion
which no longer glow with the dawn,
the branches cling to the blooms,
now brown and withered
with the relentless battering
of adversity
and the cruelty of the elements
in which they exist.

And she leans against the window,
her chin in her hand,
and mourns the passing of
this time of time of scented breezes,
but she knew all along
that something so beautiful
and so fragile as those creamy flowers
could never last through the
torrid storms of her Louisiana summer.
And as she turns from the window
to prepare to face
the coming tempest,
she holds soft within her memory
the languid fragrance of magnolia
and the voice of the angel
who sang
amid the blossoms.

phantom...(c) wla, 6-26-2000