Her grief is mine--
the young bride
in the small French village
whose husband left to fight
and died,
never knowing
he'd sired the child
still growing
In her womb.
I hear her wailing,
visualize
the endless nights
she cried.

A few years hence
dark-haired daughter
now three
kneels
at her mother's side
planting
pink roses on
her daddy's grave,
without a notion
how or where
he died.

A decade, maybe two
pass
and mother has come
alone.
Bowed head gray,
she kneels beside
her husband's grave.
Silently she weeps
and vividly recalls
that horrid day
she became a widow,
felt the sudden pain
and cried