Thirty years have passed,
Since the day the bad news came.
She knew that from that moment,
Life would never be the same.

Each night as she goes to bed,
Her heart for him does yearn.
She recalls the last he said to her,
“I promise I’ll return”

He had to break the promise,
Made as he bid her farewell.
For they told her that her soldier,
On some distant beach had fell.

Now each and every day since then,
She goes down to the shore.
And walks along the ocean,
Where they used to walk before.

She takes a yellow rose with her,
She has kissed tenderly.
She says, “This is for you my dear”
Then she drops it in the sea.

A thousand yellow roses,
Have been placed there by her hand.
In hopes that it may reach him,
On that far and distant land.

On a quiet sandy beach,
Across the ocean far away.
Lies a place so many men had died,
Back on that fateful day.

Two lovers walk along this beach,
Together hand in hand.
As they walk among rose petals,
That have washed upon the sand.

Jack Roberts – January 14, 2003

A fiction