The Wilting Rose Poem by TUSHAR BERA

My love, my rose, how fair thee used to be,
Thy petals velvet soft, thy fragrance sweet ambrosia to me.
Yet time and illness like a cankerworm within,
Have eaten away thy beauty, thy bloom begins to thin.


I watch in anguish as thy radiance fades each day,
Thy strength and vigor sapped, my heart in disarray.
O rose, my rose, how can I bid farewell,

When in thy death, my own heart's pulse will quell?


And so I reasoned, 'twas an act of mercy sure,
To snip thy stem and end thy life so pure.
One silent snip, a quick and painless fall,
'Twas all that's left, no cure could I enthrall.


My studio now lies bare, thy memory alone remains,
A haunting ghost of joys that shall not come again.
No gardener shall wonder at thy empty vase,
My guilt and grief enshrined, my secret place.


Forgive me, love, I acted out of selfish fear,
To lose thy beauty, more than I could bear.
These hands that ended thee, in vain attempt to save,
Now tremble in the knowledge of my sin so grave.


My rose, my all, thou shall not hear my anguished cry,
As at the last, beside thy fallen petals, I lie.
Our lives entwined, in death we meet once more,
The gardener and his rose, now wilted on the floor.