The last petal withers and falls,

Transforming sweetly scented aromas

Into cantankerous, sickly intoxications.

That beautiful flower,

Now blackened from discourse.

Each bud a horrible reminder of times past.

Slowly, it drifts to the ground

Stirring the dust from

The once hallowed land,

Now only a sacrilege of the worst kind,

One that defiles the beauty of God.

Standing bare,

The stem calls forth.

Its curvature, all the beauty that remains.

Where the bulb once rested

That brittle, wondrous creation calls for

Rapture, a salvation unanswered.

Redemption refused.

Melancholia settles in.

Holy presence has abandoned its post

Leaving only death to decay the remains.