She was a withering rose among a field of fresh spring daffodils
Her once youthful hands now branched with veins and
bluebell eyes that wore the sights that I have yet to see
She was a mother, a sister, a daughter and grandmother.

Spring was filled with her glowing youth
 A time where parsley-green grass stained her garments,
where mud was a fashion trend for she knew not of
fine silks and soft velvets but of stitched rags and hand-me-downs. 

It was a time where bloomed a young girl of thirteen,
with ribbons in her hair and heels on her feet,
eyes that radiated with pinprick intensity
as the whole world unfolded in front of her.

Summer brought with it its first share of romances
She was now a young woman who pranced through the meadows
 of young men 
whose sleeves wore their hearts and tongues
bore their pride.

It was a time where she basked in her youth,
where she danced blithely beneath the warm, wine sunsets
 with sailors and soldiers and all those in-between
and all but one could catch her eye.

Autumn rendered a slowing down in her time
for she had found the half to make her whole
and to whom she bore the children that
filled her with the irreplaceable glee of motherhood.

It was a time that she watched the
rusted leaves that she had grown to know
 fall to the frost-glazed grass,
whilst she desperately holds onto her roots.

Winter was a time of solitude
where she watched as her young reared young of their own
and soon, the world was a vast, cold,
empty space that she could no longer brave to dwell. 

It was a time where tiredness filled her eyes and her
lethargic face that was interwoven with the finest of fine lines
that each told a story that carers would never care to know,
lay gracefully on a hospital bed.

The circle of life is a cruel yet beautiful thing,
for she was a lover of life and bearer of pain
but she was more than just a withering rose,
she was eternal.