Weeping Blossoms

It was springtime.

The girl walked through the blossoming almond trees.

The heavy schoolbag on her back she did not feel.

Countless delicate pink petals covered the old, worn-out paving stones

on the path winding around the church.

A carpet of blossoms, a sea of blooms.

She did not take it in.

The spring wind blew the petals swirling from the trees.

On bright sunbeams they danced through the air like butterflies.

A dance of death – dying, just like the child.

Quietly the petals covered over the child’s soul, like broken-off butterfly wings.

A small, cramped hand opened hesitantly and stretched shyly towards

the falling blossoms.

A gentle breath of pink resurgent life laid itself delicately in the child’s

little hand and there it died.

Weeping blossoms.

Then it was over.

A dark cloud moved in front of the sun, the world turned grey.

Then the girl went to where she lived.

-Agnes Wich

Translation: Fr. Jim Corkery SJ.