We saw it first in hues that aged her that spring.
Faint touch of ochre in her sagging skin at first
seemed mere evidence of a life full, well-lived.
But beneath jaundiced complexion: multiplying
cells, cold and cancerous.

She spoke often of her youth: weary work
in goldenrod fields and of the father she had loved
beyond capacity to describe. She spoke of him endlessly,
as if he were present, strong arms wrapped
full around her frail life.

Later, a hint of violet began to show
beneath thin layers of flesh. Without benefit
of Max Factor magic her face became a sunset
next to the blanket of spring green, shade she had
loved the most. She held on,

refusing to surrender to the inevitable, clinging
to last vestiges of life as if she might reverse altogether
its final phase. “So beautiful,” she whispered to me, tears
spilling through her brown eyes, deep and true .
She cried long for lost years,

for every fall into some new ground, for times
she had drifted away from love. She made her peace
with the terrible beauty of it all, yielding finally,
certain another Father’s arms would catch her,
hold her close until she

healed from yellow and purple bruises of this life.
Then she would run free through goldenrod fields again,
and, later, she would understand in heaven’s winter why
we pass so quickly through spring and summer
into another fall.