Her Last Spring

She sat on the garden window ledge,
elegant and erect as a Queen,
as proud as a ship’s prow.
If you had not known
her pretty kitten-face as I had
you would never guess
her time was less
than weeks.
 
Spring, and the sun was warm
on her soft coat of spices. 
I was glad of the warmth, that she could feel it,
Though I could not believe it,
I knew it would be soon.
She was gone before the Paschal Moon
was risen.
 
I spent April in Cornwall,
where spring was well underway
and Padstow Bay
was bathed in a bridge of rainbows.
As gulls strung themselves across the sky
like bunting
I tried not to cry.
©June Palmer