Blue Roses

Down at the end of Coventry Lane, beyond a wrought iron gate
sits the cottage of Agnes Mc Shane, a widow lady of eighty-eight.
She's lived here since ten years after the war
when she knew her love would return no more.
She'd waited faithfully, but finally got word-
that he'd died in a prison camp, but all she heard
was that he died: her love, her man, her husband, dear
and her world stopped spinning, but she shed not a tear.
For she'd cried aplenty the ten years before
as she waited and waited for him at her door.

She moved to the cottage to be near the moor
where the wind would sing of her Scottish lore.
She planted a garden-- soon it filled her small plot.
She'd always loved roses, so roses she got.
He used to bring her roses in bloom,
now she has cut roses in every room.
But she didn't plant red ones, or yellow or white,
she only had blue ones, and ohhh what a sight
her garden was with all shades of blue
surrounding her cottage declaring love true.

For she knew she'd never see him again-
wouldn't see him 'til heaven; at least. hopfully then.
Yet a piece of her heart still refused to believe
that he really died, he just wouldn't leave
her to face her life all alone,
so she planted her roses, all her life, her love shone.
For blue roses, you see, symbolize
the impossible, beyond all whys.
The thing which you long for and can never attain--
She planted blue roses for Willie McShane.

The sun was just rising up over the hill
when a stooped old man reached her wooden doorsill.
He looked at the roses, this man, ancient and bent
and he smelled their fragrance, and knew what they meant.
He held one in his hand at he knocked on the door
of the woman he loved and searched sixty years for.
She came to the door and her eyes widened with tears
As she hugged her husband of sixty-eight years.
I searched for you, darling, I refused to let go-
of the woman I love, impossibly so.

The blue roses nodded in the morning light
then turned red, and yellow and, finally, white.