Butterflies

Day by day I watch my wife slip away,
like a wilted flower with not a ray of sunshine.
Staring out the window
Counting the days on her rosary
Murmering sweet prayers
To invisible angels.
At night she talks
And voices her fears
But only when she thinks I'm asleep.
Again before dawn I found her
Waiting almost besides the window sill
The sun streaming in through the dusty panes.
I took her pale veined hand
She had aged over the small space of a month
Almost ghost like she followed my lead
Out into the garden.
This is where our pride and joy
Our own childish play had taken place.
Digging in the rich earth
Giving life to crumbling seeds.
But now our garden is brown and desolate
The crickets are no longer rampant
The worms have hibernated
The birds flown the coop.
All that was left today was a tired little butterfly
Too cold to flap her wings
Too afraid to fly away
Too hungry to move.
My lovely wife let go of me
And reached for the dying butterfly.
She turned to me and opened her palm
Where the dying beauty clung.
As if reciting another slow painful prayer
She softly sang in her quiet voice,
"For dust thou art,
And unto dust shalt thou return."
The butterfly died
And the last bit of hope in my wife did too.